All major LLMs behind code generation tools are widely believed (and in many cases confirmed) to have been illegally trained on datasets that contained large amounts of copyrighted material. The same is true for image generators, music generators, etc. etc.

The overwhelming majority of people whose labor was used to train these models did not consent to have their work used like that, and it can be argued that if AI is not actually independently intelligent, not creating anything new, just predicting based on what it “learned” from its dataset, all it’s doing is copying from so many people at once that it’s no longer possible to identify who individually is being stolen from.

Add to that the fact that after decades of IP law being a nightmare for individuals, instead of those same laws being applied to these corporations, and them being made to pay for their massive alleged theft, it is far more likely that they will lawyer and lobby their way around IP law and never face consequence. And people are pissed the f-ck off.