Victory! Appeals Court Rejects Expansive New Copyright Claim

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled in favor of internet users and programmers, dismissing an attempt to broaden a specific copyright provision from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The case centered around Section 1202 of the DMCA, which prohibits the intentional removal of copyright management information (CMI) from copyrighted works.

Open AI and Microsoft utilized code from Github to train their large language models (LLMs) along with a vast array of other digital content. A coalition of anonymous Github contributors filed a lawsuit, claiming that the new code generated by these LLMs bore resemblance to their original work, yet without the accompanying CMI. The Ninth Circuit agreed with EFF's position, stating that the removal of CMI from a copyrighted work is distinct from generating a wholly new work that did not originally possess CMI.

The court emphasized that the DMCA was designed as a safeguard for traditional copyright protections in the digital era, rather than to establish a fresh means to curb the lawful use of otherwise non-infringing works. By affirming this decision, the court has prevented a new avenue for liability that could stifle creativity and innovation, particularly for independent creators and small developers.

This decision affirms that copyright law continues to safeguard programmers from unlawful copying, and that copyright infringement claims can still be pursued if someone uses a model to reproduce their code. The ruling underscores that copyright law should be interpreted according to the specific authorizations granted by Congress, rather than allowing courts to invent novel rights that may have negative implications for expression and lawful use.