Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XXVII — The Future of OpenAI May Depend on the Fate of GitHub's Copilot in Court ($9 Billion in Damages)

Series parts:

  1. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part I — Inside a Den of Corruption and Misogynists
  2. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part II — The Campaign Against GPL Compliance and War on Copyleft Enforcement
  3. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part III — A Story of Plagiarism and Likely Securities Fraud
  4. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part IV — Mr. MobileCoin: From Mono to Plagiarism... and to Unprecedented GPL Violations at GitHub (Microsoft)
  5. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part V — Why Nat Friedman is Leaving GitHub


  6. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part VI — The Media Has Mischaracterised Nat Friedman's Departure (Effective Now)
  7. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part VII — Nat Friedman, as GitHub CEO, Had a Plan of Defrauding Microsoft Shareholders
  8. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part VIII — Mr. Graveley's Long Career Serving Microsoft's Agenda (Before Hiring by Microsoft to Work on GitHub's GPL Violations Machine)
  9. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part IX — Microsoft's Chief Architect of GitHub Copilot Sought to be Arrested One Day After Techrights Article About Him
  10. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part X — Connections to the Mass Surveillance Industry (and the Surveillance State)


  11. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XI — Violence Against Women
  12. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XII — Life of Disorderly Conduct and Lust
  13. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XIII — Nihilistic Death Cults With Substance Abuse and Sick Kinks
  14. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XIV — Gaslighting Victims of Sexual Abuse and Violence
  15. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XV — Cover-Up and Defamation


  16. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XVI — The Attack on the Autonomy of Free Software Carries on
  17. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XVII — Backsliding Into 1990s-Style Digital Slavery by Microsoft
  18. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XVIII — The Story of NPM
  19. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XIX — The Collapse of Team Mono
  20. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XX — Entering Phase II


  21. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XXI — Rumours About How Microsoft Plans to Actually Make Money (Not Losses) From GitHub
  22. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XXII — 'Mr. GitHub Copilot' Balabhadra (Alex) Graveley Pleads Guilty After Assaulting Women
  23. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XXIII — CoPlagiarist: Microsoft's GPL Violations and Plagiarism Tool Created by Serial Plagiarists
  24. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XXIV — Using Microsoft Money as 'Get Out of Jail' Card After Suffocating Women
  25. Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part XXV — Microsoft Employs Serial Strangler as a Manager, Running GitHub Copilot in Spite of Arrest for Assault on Women
  26. there are lots of layoffs


  27. YOU ARE HERE ☞ The Future of OpenAI May Depend on the Fate of GitHub's Copilot in Court ($9 Billion in Damages)


GitHub: Where everything comes to die



Summary: Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into mindless, fact-free marketing of Plagiarism-as-a-Service; Copilot might be a crucial test case because there is now a class action lawsuit

WE still have literally thousands of lines in notes about Copilot and stuff related to the people behind it. Expect a lot of coverage to come. It seems like now is the perfect time to continue with that series, seeing there are lots of layoffs. The bubble is bursting; GitHub as a business isn't viable.

So what will Microsoft make of all the GitHub 'data'?

"There has been little coverage of Microsoft plagiarism of copyrighted code via their "OpenAI" scam Copilot," an associate recently said. "The DMCA, which they have abused extensively both directly and via their marketing arm the BSA, has provisions for severe penalties for their stripping of both licenses and attribution from the code they are plagiarizing."

Having focused on EPO and the openwashing pandemic (this has gone global and Sirius 'Open Source' is among the culprits) we've not had much time (also very limited human capacity) to cover the "OpenAI" scam. Now that the paid-for Microsoft hype has died down a bit, let's consider what's at stake.

"How much plagiarism can Microsoft get away with?""The stripping of licenses affects software patent coverage," the associated explained, "since some licences address software patents and some don't."

"Then there is the question of what kind of software patent scams "OpenAI" itself is trying to pull?"

Here is a recent explanation of where we stand now, as per the latest legal developments; ever since then it was only reported that Microsoft tried very hard to have this entire lawsuit tossed out, perhaps knowing that all the "OpenAI" modus operandi is at stake, with precedents counting. To quote the outline:

As projected here back in October, there is now a class action lawsuit, albeit in its earliest stages, against Microsoft over its blatant license violation through its use of the Microsoft GitHub Copilot tool. The software project, Copilot, strips copyright licensing and attribution from existing copyrighted code on an unprecedented scale. The class action lawsuit insists that machine learning algorithms, often marketed as "Artificial Intelligence", are not exempt from copyright law nor are the wielders of such tools.

The $9 billion in damages is arrived at through scale. When Microsoft Copilot rips code without attribution and strips the copyright license from it, it violates the DMCA three times. So if olny 1% of its 1.2M users receive such output, the licenses were breached 12k times with translates to 36k DMCA violations, at a very low-ball estimate.

"If each user receives just one Output that violates Section 1202 throughout their time using Copilot (up to fifteen months for the earliest adopters), then GitHub and OpenAI have violated the DMCA 3,600,000 times. At minimum statutory damages of $2500 per violation, that translates to $9,000,000,000," the litigants stated.

Besides open-source licenses and DMCA (€§ 1202, which for€­bids the removal of copy€­right-man€­age€­ment infor€­ma€­tion), the lawsuit alleges violation of GitHub's terms of ser€­vice and pri€­vacy poli€­cies, the Cal€­i€­for€­nia Con€­sumer Pri€­vacy Act (CCPA), and other laws.

The suit is on twelve (12) counts: – Violation of the DMCA. – Breach of contract. x2 – Tortuous interference. – Fraud. – False designation of origin. – Unjust enrichment. – Unfair competition. – Violation of privacy act. – Negligence. – Civil conspiracy. – Declaratory relief.

Furthermore, these actions are contrary to what GitHub stood for prior to its sale to Microsoft and indicate yet another step in ongoing attempts by Microsoft to undermine and sabotage Free and Open Source Software and the supporting communities.


This series about Copilot may seem small compared to all the media "garbage" (paid-for Microsoft hype that disguises or distracts from a Bing crisis, including many Bing layoffs). But irrespective of size/scale/reach, this is an important test case. How much plagiarism can Microsoft get away with? Plagiarism-as-a-Service isn't a legitimate business model (Copilot subscription for proprietary Visual Studio).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) Won't Work
American companies don't follow laws, they work around them
Net Gain of 50 Gemini Capsules in Just One Month
a big jump in just one month
 
SLAPP Censorship - Part 179 Out of 200: Using One's Clients to Save Face at Their Expense
Who's being served really?
Switzerland's Software Freedom/Digital Sovereignty is Improving as People Move to GNU/Linux
Well done to them
Links 12/09/2026: "U.S. Debt Surpasses $40 Trillion" and "Trump Wants to [Illegally] Bribe Voters."
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/09/2026: Readjusting, Fighting Sleep, and FreeBSD bhyve
Links for the day
Matt Mullenweg Got the 'Linus Treatment' or 'RMS Treatment'
"back, but not in charge any more..."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 11, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, September 11, 2026
Earlier This Year Microsoft's Chief Liar Frank Shaw Lied About the Layoffs. Now He's Leaving.
he's nowhere near retirement age
Gemini Links 11/09/2026: Small Things and "Hitching Your Wagon"
Links for the day
Links 11/09/2026: Tristan Buckmaster Ripped Off by Slop, Social Control Media Spreads Hatred for Profit
Links for the day
Animals Smarter Than Chatbots
Quack quack goes the chatbot
IBM Isn't Reporting Layoffs, But It Removes Tens of Thousands of People From Its Workforce
Red Hat and IBM already mark people for removal
"A Tale of Two Antónios" Will Resume Soon
In November the site turns 20
Links 11/09/2026: Cyberattack in Berlin (Windows/Microsoft TCO) and Hype About Slop as 'Existential' Something; Scam Altman et al Caught Stealing/Plagiarising "Mathematical Breakthrough"
Links for the day
Microsoft/GNOME 9/11
Garrett and Graveley (Microsoft/GNOME) will have a lot to explain
Keeping Linux Reliable
If Linux becomes a lot more reliable in the future, it'll be an "hey hi" miracle. If Linux becomes a lot less reliable in the future, we'll know why and who is responsible for it.
9/11 Was a National Event, Not an International Event
They insist that back doors will "save lives"
Very Sloppy PR From a Dying IBM, Company in Disarray and in Need of Distractions
IBM could really use distractions right now
Cyber Show on the Fallacy of Salary/Ego as a Function of Wisdom in the Era of Pyramid Schemes (Cheating People Using Buzzwords and Complicit Media)
"the remuneration fallacy and the role of reluctance as a negative feedback force."
What a Price-Fixing Cartel Can Look Like
If your prices increase five-fold or ten-fold and so do your revenues/income, what does that tell us?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 178 Out of 200: Explaining to Your American Clients That Spending 130,000+ United States Dollars on a Single Hearing in Another Continent Means the UK's National Archives Will Retain in Perpetuity What Your Spouse or Girlfriend Said
Balabhadra (Alex) Graveley should ask Garrett how much money he has lost so far
EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich Organises General Assembly Next Week, the Goal is to Oust the Corrupt President and Derail His Unlawful Agenda
They're aiming to show Campinos the door
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 10, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, September 10, 2026
Latest IBM Gossip is, Over 25,000 People to be PIPed (by Year's End)
That figure, 10%, is different from 15% (what we saw a lot). 10% is over 25,000 staff.
Solidarity at EPO
"Many colleagues have made personal and professional sacrifices by participating in the ongoing strike and work-to-rule action"
Gemini Links 11/09/2026: Culture Stuck, Robot Symphony, and Back to Geminispace
Links for the day
Links 10/09/2026: Facebook Unsafe for Kids, Fake Songs (Against Right of Publicity, CG Forgeries Basically) a Growing Problem
Links for the day
Rust is Financially and Technically Controlled by Microsoft. Rust Foundation is a Front for Microsoft's Proprietary Software.
Rust is not and has never been about security
Gemini Links 10/09/2026: "I Don’t Want to Interact With Stochastic Parrots" and "ROOPHLOCH 2026!"
Links for the day
What the British School Closure (BSN Senior School Leidschenveen) Means to EPO Staff
The only European thing about the EPO is the staff
Standing in Solidarity With Matt Mullenweg
I don't trust the people and companies that want Mullenweg out. Neither should you.
Links 10/09/2026: "Smear Campaign Says Anti-Flock Movement Is Chinese Propaganda" and "Flock Employee Calls Cops on Reporter Filming Them"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 09, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 09, 2026