DOE vs. GitHub: What Were the Claims for Relief?

VIII. CLAIMS FOR RELIEF

COUNT 2 BREACH OF CONTRACT—OPEN-SOURCE LICENSE VIOLATIONS Common Law (Against All Defendants)

214. Plaintiffs and the Class hereby repeat and incorporate by reference each preceding and succeeding paragraph as though fully set forth herein.

215. Plaintiffs and the Class offer code under various Licenses, the most common of which are set forth in Appendix A. Use of each of the Licensed Materials is allowed only pursuant to the terms of the applicable Suggested License.

216. Plaintiffs and the Class granted Defendants a license to copy, distribute, and/or create Derivative Works under the Suggested Licenses. Each of the Suggested Licenses requires at least (1) that attribution be given to the owner of the Licensed Materials used, (2) inclusion of a copyright notice for the Licensed Materials used, and (3) inclusion of the terms of the applicable Suggested License. When providing Output, Copilot does not comply with any of these terms.

217. Defendants accepted the terms of Plaintiffs’ and the Class’s Licenses when it used the licensed code to create Copilot and when it incorporated the licensed code into Copilot. They have accepted and continue to accept the applicable Licenses every time Copilot Output’s Plaintiffs’ or the Class’s copyrighted code. As such, contracts have been formed between Defendants on the one hand and Plaintiffs and the Class on the other.

218. Plaintiffs and the Class have performed each of the conditions, covenants, and obligations imposed on them by the terms of the License associated with their Licensed Materials.

219. Plaintiffs and members of the Class hold the copyright in the contents of one or more code repositories that have been hosted on GitHub’s platform.

220. Plaintiffs and the Class have appended one of the Suggested Licenses to each of the Licensed Materials.

221. Plaintiffs and the Class did not know about, authorize, approve, or license the Defendants’ use of the Licensed Materials in the matter at issue in this Complaint before they were used by Defendants.

222. Defendants have substantially and materially breached the applicable Licenses by failing to provide the source code of Copilot nor a written offer to provide the source code upon the request of each licensee.

223. Defendants have substantially and materially breached the applicable Licenses by failing to provide attribution to the creator and/or owner of the Licensed Materials.

224. Defendants have substantially and materially breached the applicable Licenses by failing to include copyright notices when Copilot Outputs copyrighted OS code.

225. Defendants have substantially and materially breached the applicable Licenses by failing to identify the License applicable to the Work and/or including its text when Copilot Outputs code including a portion of a Work.

226. Plaintiffs and the Class have suffered monetary damages as a result of Defendants’ conduct.

227. The conduct of Defendants is causing and, unless enjoined and restrained by this Court, will continue to cause Plaintiffs and the Class great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money.

228. As a direct and proximate result of these material breaches by Defendants, Plaintiffs and the Class are entitled to an injunction requiring Defendants to comply with all the terms of any License governing use of code that was used to train Copilot, otherwise incorporated into Copilot, and/or reproduced as Output by Copilot.

229. Plaintiffs and the Class are further entitled to recover from Defendants the damages Plaintiffs and the Class sustained—including consequential damages—for Plaintiffs’ and the Class’s costs in enforcing their contractual rights. Plaintiffs and the Class are also entitled to recover as restitution from Defendants for any unjust enrichment, including gains, profits, and advantages that Defendants have obtained as a result of their breach of contract.

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This court case 4:22-cv-06823-JST retrieved on August 26, 2023, from Storage Courtlistener is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction.