DOE vs. Github (amended complaint) Court Filing (Redacted), June 8, 2023 is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part in this filing here. This is part 19 of 38.
VII. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
F. Copilot Reproduces the Code of the Named Plaintiffs Without Attribution
1. Example: Copilot Outputs the Code of Doe 2 Essentially Verbatim
100. The first example demonstrates Copilot suggesting an essentially verbatim copy of code written by Doe 2.
101. (Redacted) subject to the GNU General Public License v3.0. (Redacted)
102. When Copilot is prompted the first few lines of Doe 2’s code:
(Redacted)
Copilot suggests the following:
(Redacted)
103. This suggestion from Copilot is identical to Doe 2’s code, except that (redacted) These differences in the code are cosmetic and the code is functionally equivalent; otherwise, this is a verbatim copy. Doe 2’s particular arrangement and sequencing seen in his code is distinctive expression found only in one location on GitHub: (redacted)
104. Because the Copilot suggestion is a nearly verbatim reproduction of Doe 2’s unique code, it follows that Copilot copied Doe 2’s code. Copilot therefore needed to adhere to the requirements of Doe 2’s license (GNU General Public License v3.0) for that code, including providing attribution. It does not. Copilot also did not reproduce Doe 2’s license.
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This court case 4:22-cv-06823-JST retrieved on August 26, 2023, from Storage Courtlistener is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction.