> According to Downing, the answer depends to a certain extent on where that code is hosted. If it’s on GitHub, there very clearly would not be copyright infringement.
> “If you look at the GitHub Terms of Service, no matter what license you use, you give GitHub the right to host your code and to use your code to improve their products and features,” Downing says. “So with respect to code that’s already on GitHub, I think the answer to the question of copyright infringement is fairly straightforward.”
Downing cautions that copilot output of large chunks of code complete with comments are more questionable to use, but that for the most part it looks above board.
https://fossa.com/blog/analyzing-legal-implications-github-c...
Here's an English lawyer on the same topic...
> The licence is broadly worded, and I'm confident that there is scope for argument, but if it turns out that Github does not require a licence for its activities then, in respect of the code hosted on Github, I suspect it could make a reasonable case that the mandatory licence grant in its terms covers this as against the uploader.
https://decoded.legal/blog/2021/06/github-copilot-initial-th...
I am very surprised there hasn’t been a legal challenge to it.
“I’m sorry your honor I didn’t understand what I was signing” I don’t think has ever been a valid reason in a courtroom, similar to “I’m sorry I didn’t know I was committing a crime” is not a valid defense.
That's assuming that all code on GitHub is uploaded in good faith by the copyright owner, which is not always going to be the case.
Linux, for example, does not require copyright assignment. The original contributor of a change owns the copyright for that code and may have never used Github.
