TL;DR
The Ninth Circuit upheld dismissal of the first-ever copyright lawsuit against OpenAI over a generative AI product, closing off a key legal theory that rights-holders have been using to pursue AI training claims.
What happened
- A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel ruled in favor of OpenAI and GitHub in the Copilot copyright case on September 16, 2026.
- The court upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit brought by programmers against OpenAI and GitHub.
- This was the first copyright case ever brought against OpenAI specifically over a generative AI product.
- The ruling shut down one legal theory that copyright owners have relied on to pursue claims against AI companies over training data use.
Why it matters
- A Ninth Circuit precedent carries broad jurisdictional weight, covering California and the West Coast where most major AI labs are headquartered.
- OpenAI, Microsoft (GitHub's owner), and the broader AI industry gain a significant legal shield against a category of training-data copyright claims.
- Rights-holders, including authors, coders, and publishers pursuing similar theories in parallel cases, now face a weakened playbook in the Ninth Circuit.
- The ruling signals that courts are skeptical of at least some copyright-based challenges to how AI companies ingest and train on code and text.
- Remaining litigation against AI firms will likely need to pivot to alternative legal theories, raising the bar for plaintiffs.
What to watch next
- Whether plaintiffs appeal to the full Ninth Circuit (en banc) or seek Supreme Court review, which could reopen the question at a higher level.
- How parallel copyright suits against OpenAI, Stability AI, and others in different circuits respond to or distinguish this ruling.
- Whether Congress accelerates legislative action on AI and copyright now that courts are narrowing the judicial path for rights-holders.
Originally published on Present of AI, a daily source-linked AI news timeline. Read the full timeline or browse the open dataset.