It seems like Microsoft could be in the clear on the basis of it being essentially "search". But it also seems like anyone who uses it could be risking to a high degree getting infected with copyright violating code.
My question is, if it isn't a copyright infringement issue to use copilot in its current form right now, why not just claim copilot was used whenever accused of copyright infringement hence forth?
> why not just claim copilot was used whenever accused of copyright infringement hence forth?
Without speaking to the particulars of copilot, this situation where laws seem toothless because of the ease of plausible deniability is actually fairly common. And in many such cases, the law is not as toothless as it seems, because
1. Getting multiple people to stick to a script under oath is difficult and dangerous.
2. Criminals frequently send each other messages like
A: "lol I just crimed, hope nobody figures it out."
B: "lol just say you used copilot".
A: "lolol yeah fuck the law"
Obviously this only gets the worst criminals, but there seems to be lots and lots of them.
Microsoft is trying to legally position Copilot like StackOverflow. It is possible to post copyright-infringing code on SO even though their TOS requires a CC BY-SA 4.0 grant to the company and its users.
My question is, if it isn't a copyright infringement issue to use copilot in its current form right now, why not just claim copilot was used whenever accused of copyright infringement hence forth?