In a published opinion filed September 16, 2026 in Doe v. GitHub, Inc., No. 24-7700, a Ninth Circuit panel of Judges Thomas and Miller and District Judge Blumenfeld, sitting by designation, affirmed the dismissal of a claim under section 1202(b) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Judge Miller wrote the opinion. The plaintiffs are programmers who published open-source code on GitHub, and they allege that Copilot and OpenAI's Codex sometimes output their code without the attribution, copyright notices and license terms attached to it, which they say amounts to removing copyright management information. The appeal came from the Northern District of California on a certification for interlocutory review, after the district court dismissed the claim on the reasoning that such claims require identical copies. The panel held the plaintiffs had standing, having plausibly alleged a substantial risk of injury. On the merits, it said the statute does not require literal identicality and described that concept as a gloss on the statutory terms, but held that the plaintiffs' allegations show Copilot and Codex create new works that never contained the information, so nothing was removed or altered from a copy. It declined to consider the plaintiffs' separate theory about removal during training, finding it forfeited, and expressed no view on whether the output infringes copyright. The plaintiffs' two breach of contract claims remain pending in the district court. The ruling applies US law. India's Delhi High Court is separately hearing ANI's copyright appeal against OpenAI under Indian law.