It's not just one snippet, it's thousands of them, every day being slurped up and copied across code bases everywhere license free.
If the pirate bay can get jail time for facilitating mass copyright infringement, maybe Microsoft needs a little jail time too.
It's been said in this thread already:
Either licenses matter or they don't. Pick one.
I disagree that comparing Copilot with Pirate Bay is a good argument to make your case (maybe Dall-e is a closer comparison if resulting artwork could contain licensed artwork from the training set). You'd probably have other fronts to use and present a stronger argument.
And let me remind you that I have not argumented on behalf of any side, so I do not think this thread requires arguments against arguments I have never brought forward (it feels a bit more emotional than constructive).
This is an argument. A bad one, but an argument none the less.
Copilot seems to be copying code snippets from the internet wholesale. It's not using AI to generate snippets which would possibly be ok.
Copyright doesn't care about the size of the abuse or the size of the works involved.
Microsoft is creating these copies and even facilitates their redistribution on GitHub.
I know legally it's more likely the users of copilot that are at risk here but we said the same thing about torrenting.
Look at Napster, LimeWire or the pirate bay. The outcomes Microsoft deserves here is pretty cut and dry.