Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI are facing a proposed class action lawsuit accusing them of scraping licensed code to build GitHub’s AI-powered Copilot tool. The lawsuit was filed last November by programmer and lawyer Matthew Butterick and the legal team at Joseph Saveri Law Firm. Now, the companies have submitted a pair of filings to a San Francisco federal court, asking the court to dismiss the complaint.
In the filing, Microsoft and GitHub claim the complaint “fails on two intrinsic defects: lack of injury and lack of an otherwise viable claim.” Similarly, OpenAI says the plaintiffs “allege a grab bag of claims that fail to plead violations of cognizable legal rights.” The companies argue that the plaintiffs rely on “hypothetical events” to make their claim, and don’t describe how they were personally harmed by the tool.
Microsoft and GitHub also say Copilot “withdraws nothing from the body of open source code available to the public” and instead “helps developers write code by generating suggestions based on what it has learned from the entire body of knowledge gleaned from public code.” They go on to claim that the plaintiffs are the ones who “undermine open source principles” by asking for “an injunction and a multi-billion dollar windfall” in relation to the “software that they willingly share as open source.”
The court hearing to dismiss the suit will take place in May, and Joseph Saveri Law Firm didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. With other companies looking into AI as well, Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI aren’t the only ones facing legal issues. Earlier this month, Butterick and Joseph Saveri Law Firm filed another lawsuit alleging the AI art tools created by MidJourney, Stability AI, and DeviantArt violate copyright laws. Getty Images is also suing Stability AI over claims the company’s Stable Diffusion tool “unlawfully” scraped images from the site.
Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI are facing a lawsuit that could have a major impact on the development of AI-powered tools. Lawyer Matthew Butterick and the legal team at Joseph Saveri Law Firm have filed a proposed class action lawsuit accusing the companies of scraping licensed code to build GitHub’s Copilot tool, and now the companies are asking the court to dismiss the complaint.
In the filing, Microsoft and GitHub claim the complaint “fails on two intrinsic defects: lack of injury and lack of an otherwise viable claim.” OpenAI similarly says the plaintiffs “allege a grab bag of claims that fail to plead violations of cognizable legal rights.” The companies argue that the plaintiffs rely on “hypothetical events” to make their claim, and don’t describe how they were personally harmed by the tool.
Microsoft and GitHub also say Copilot “withdraws nothing from the body of open source code available to the public” and instead “helps developers write code by generating suggestions based on what it has learned from the entire body of knowledge gleaned from public code.” They go on to claim that the plaintiffs are the ones who “undermine open source principles” by asking for “an injunction and a multi-billion dollar windfall” in relation to the “software that they willingly share as open source.”
The court hearing to dismiss the suit will take place in May, and Joseph Saveri Law Firm didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. If the complaint is dismissed, it could have a major impact on the development of AI-powered tools. However, Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI aren’t the only ones facing legal issues. Earlier this month, Butterick and Joseph Saveri Law Firm filed another lawsuit alleging the AI art tools created by MidJourney, Stability AI, and DeviantArt violate copyright laws. Getty Images is also suing Stability AI over claims the company’s Stable Diffusion tool “unlawfully” scraped images from the site.
Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI are facing a proposed class action lawsuit that could have a major impact on the development of AI-powered tools. Lawyer Matthew Butterick and the legal team at Joseph Saveri Law Firm have accused the companies of scraping licensed code to build GitHub’s Copilot tool, and now the companies have submitted a pair of filings to a San Francisco federal court, asking the court to dismiss the complaint.
In the filing, Microsoft and GitHub claim the complaint “fails on two intrinsic defects: lack of injury and lack of an otherwise viable claim.” OpenAI similarly says the plaintiffs “allege a grab bag of claims that fail to plead violations of cognizable legal rights.” The companies argue that the plaintiffs rely on “hypothetical events” to make their claim, and don’t describe how they were personally harmed by the tool.
Microsoft and GitHub also say Copilot “withdraws nothing from the body of open source code available to the public” and instead “helps developers write code by generating suggestions based on what it has learned from the entire body of knowledge gleaned from public code.” They go on to claim that the plaintiffs are the ones who “undermine open source principles” by asking for “an injunction and a multi-billion dollar windfall” in relation to the “software that they willingly share as open source.”
The court hearing to dismiss the suit will take place in May, and Joseph Saveri Law Firm didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. If the complaint is dismissed, it could have a major impact on the development of AI-powered tools. However, Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI aren’t the only ones facing legal issues related to AI. Earlier this month, Butterick and Joseph Saveri Law Firm filed another lawsuit alleging the AI art tools created by MidJourney, Stability AI, and DeviantArt violate copyright laws. Getty Images is also suing Stability AI over claims the company’s Stable Diffusion tool “unlawfully” scraped images from the site. As the legal landscape around AI and open source code continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how these cases play out in court.