OpenAI Dropped From First Ever AI Programming Copyright Lawsuit

The programmers, who allege the generative AI programming tool Copilot was trained on their code without proper attribution, filed their notice of voluntary dismissal Thursday, but will still have their case against GitHub Inc. and parent company Microsoft Corp., which collaborated with OpenAI in developing the tool.

The proposed class action filed in 2022 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California was the first major copyright case against OpenAI, which has since been hit with numerous lawsuits from authors and news organizations including the New York Times.

The programmers didn’t claim copyright infringement, but instead argued that Copilot could produce copyrighted chunks of code without the proper attribution and licensing terms attached, violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Judge Jon S. Tigar dismissed the DMCA claims earlier this month, but allowed the programmers to advance their claims that the OpenAI and GitHub violated open-source licensing agreements.”