Based on an article from Bloomberg Law, OpenAI has been dropped from the first-ever AI programming copyright lawsuit. The lawsuit, initiated by a group of open-source programmers, argued that OpenAI’s generative AI tool, Copilot, which was developed in collaboration with GitHub and Microsoft, was trained on their code without proper attribution. The legal action was filed in 2022 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, marking a significant copyright case against OpenAI.

The programmers voluntarily dismissed their case against OpenAI in federal court but will continue their legal battle against GitHub and Microsoft. The case revolved around Copilot's ability to produce copyrighted chunks of code without attaching the proper attribution and licensing terms, thus violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Earlier in the month, Judge Jon S. Tigar dismissed the DMCA claims but allowed the programmers to pursue claims related to violations of open-source licensing agreements.

This lawsuit was a major legal challenge for OpenAI, which has faced multiple lawsuits from authors and news organizations, including the New York Times. The dismissal of the case against OpenAI does not end the scrutiny faced by GitHub and Microsoft, who remain defendants in the ongoing legal proceedings. The legal representation includes Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP and Matthew Butterick for the programmers, Morrison & Foerster LLP for OpenAI, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP for GitHub and Microsoft.

The outcome of this case could have significant implications for the development and use of AI tools, especially those trained on open-source code. It raises pivotal questions about the boundaries of copyright, licensing, and the ethical use of AI in programming.