Victory! Appeals Court Rejects Expansive New Copyright Claim
The Ninth Circuit rejected an attempt to use Section 1202 of the DMCA — which bars the removal of copyright management information like author names — as a new basis for copyright liability against OpenAI and Microsoft over their use of GitHub code to train large language models.
Why this matters: This ruling matters for anyone who has ever posted code, writing, or creative work online. Plaintiffs argued that stripping attribution data during AI training violated the DMCA. The court said no. That is a real limit on one legal theory, but the broader fight over whether AI companies can freely train on public work without consequence is far from over. Today's win for OpenAI and Microsoft is not a green light on everything. It is one door closing while several others stay open.
Who should care: General readers · AI governance · Policy
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