Microsoft, GitHub, OpenAI request court to dismiss ``copyright infringement lawsuit by AI tool''

Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI have been sued for using open source code to train artificial intelligence (AI), alleging that they 'profit from the work of open source programmers.' . In response, it became clear that Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI are asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

OpenAI, Microsoft want court to toss lawsuit accusing them of abusing open-source code | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/openai-microsoft-want-court-toss-lawsuit-accusing-them-abusing-open-source-code-2023-01-27/

Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI ask court to throw out AI copyright lawsuit - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/28/23575919/microsoft-openai-github-dismiss-copilot-ai-copyright-lawsuit

In June 2022, GitHub announced the code completion AI tool `` GitHub Copilot '' that writes the continuation of the code. Since GitHub Copilot is trained using the code on GitHub, some programmers have said that they are 'outputting the code they wrote', which immediately conflicts with the copyright law. It has been pointed out that there may be

GitHub Copilot, which automatically completes the continuation of the source code, points out that ``copyrighted code is output''-GIGAZINE

And in November 2022, three companies involved in the development of GitHub Copilot, Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI, filed a class action lawsuit for ``profiting from the work of open source programmers.'' Matthew Butterrick, a programmer and lawyer, filed a class action lawsuit, and the plaintiff claims that ``GitHub Copilot is doing software piracy on an unprecedented scale.'' This is the first lawsuit regarding a generation tool using AI, and Mr. Buttarrick and his lawyers have filed two more class action lawsuits for similar reasons.

AI 'GitHub Copilot' finally learned with GitHub code faces class action - GIGAZINE

It has become clear that three companies, Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI, have submitted documents related to this class action lawsuit to the San Francisco Federal Court and are asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

In the filing, Microsoft and GitHub pointed out that Buttarrick's complaint 'fails due to two essential flaws.' Furthermore, he points out that ``plaintiffs rely only on ``hypothetical events'' and ``does not describe how they are personally infringed.''

Further, Microsoft et al., 'GitHub Copilot draws nothing from the body of publicly available open source code. Rather, GitHub Copilot builds on what it learns from the entire body of knowledge gained from publicly available code.' We generate proposals and help developers create code, ”he said, claiming that he did not infringe copyright as pointed out by the plaintiff.

In addition, ``The plaintiff is trying to undermine the principles of open source by seeking an injunction and billions of dollars (hundreds of billions of yen) in profits for software that is willingly shared as open source. ”I claim.

Despite facing such lawsuits, Microsoft has invested hundreds of billions of yen in OpenAI and announced a long-term partnership with the company. In addition, it is rumored that Microsoft is considering introducing AI tools to its own products such as Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook, and adding AI chatbot 'ChatGPT' to search engine Bing.

Microsoft announces that it has invested hundreds of billions of yen in OpenAI and signed a long-term partnership - GIGAZINE

It should be noted that Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI are not the only companies facing legal issues with AI tools. In January 2023, Buttarik and others filed a lawsuit , claiming that AI art tools created by MidJourney, Stability AI, and DeviantArt are illegally scraping artwork on the Internet. Similarly, Getty Images is suing Stability AI, accusing Stable Diffusion of 'illegally' scraping images from its site.