In response to the copyright lawsuit filed against them by Brazilian AI company TechnoAi, Microsoft and GitHub, alongside OpenAI, have requested for the court to dismiss the case.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in California, alleges that the companies have infringed on TechnoAi’s copyright by creating and distributing software code, statements, and other digital product which is nonetheless unique under the current laws of most countries.
Microsoft and GitHub have argued that the code used in those products comes from a free open-source repository called GITHUB, and has been made available for anyone to use for personal, business, or academic use. They point to the fact that TechnoAi should also be aware of such fact as all the information regarding the source was clearly displayed on the repository’s website.
OpenAI, on the other hand, has stated that their software code and computer algorithms were not derived from any of TechnoAi’s works and that their code was actually based on an open-source collection of training data referred to as “TensorFlow”.
The lawsuit further accused the companies of “brazenly and willfully” infringing on TechnoAi’s copyrights, and of creating applications and services based on the illegally copied code and data.
Microsoft and GitHub have argued that such claims are “frivolous” and lack any merit and should not be subject to investigation. OpenAI on the other hand have attracted criticism by many for what has been seen by some as inexperience in the AI industry.
The outcome of the case will be closely watched by many as it will set a new precedent regarding the potential liability companies face when creating and distributing software code and algorithms developed from open-source repositories. It remains to be seen if the court will decide against TechnoAi and in favor of Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI or not.