Question

A developer on a GitHub Copilot Business plan accepts a suggestion that later turns out to closely resemble a snippet found in a public repository, even though the organization has the public-code matching filter enabled. Legal asks who holds responsibility for the code once it is committed and shipped in the product. What is the accurate position on ownership and responsibility for Copilot output?

Accepted Answer

The customer owns and is responsible for the suggestions they accept, and the matching filter reduces but does not guarantee elimination of public-code matches, so human review remains necessary.

Answer

GitHub retains ownership of any Copilot-generated code, so the organization must obtain a license before shipping it.

Answer

With the matching filter enabled, all accepted suggestions are legally guaranteed to be free of public-code matches, transferring all responsibility to GitHub.

Answer

Copilot Business automatically indemnifies the customer for every accepted suggestion, so no review of accepted code is required.