GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI must defend their use of someone else’s programming code in a US court. The three parties wanted to get rid of two specific allegations before the case began, but the judge has ruled that they must still defend that Codex sometimes reproduces code that is ‘borrowed’ from others, and whether Copilot and Codex share enough author information when using copyrighted code.
In November, developers sued the three parties for software piracy. At the beginning of this year, GitHub, parent company Microsoft, and OpenAI disagreed with two specific allegations in this area, but the judge has ruled that the defense’s complaints were not detailed enough to implement.
There are quite a few concerns about privacy and copyright around the use of AI tools. AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 and GPT-4 rely on huge datasets, often containing open-source code and web content. It is not yet entirely clear what the final indictment will look like or when we can expect a trial, but it is certain that the lawsuit has a lot at stake for Microsoft and its partners. If the use of copyrighted code does not appear legitimate in Copilot and Codex, it will most likely also need to be modified in a ChatGPT window. In addition, political concerns about privacy and copyright within AI datasets will have a potential inhibiting effect on the integration of artificial intelligence in commercial products, such as Office 365.
