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I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

thelig.ht

41–50 of 545 posts

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#41
post #21

I really hope this weakens copyright. We can live without it.

Who can? Sure, Disney shouldn’t be able to copyright public domain works or Mickey Mouse until the end of time. But they also shouldn’t be able to swoop in, use your songs/artwork/software in their latest movie, without permission or appropriate compensation.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#44
post #34

I thought this was a pretty good thread (by an ex-Wikipedia lawyer) on Twitter about the IP meaning of Copilot. https://twitter.com/luis_in_brief/status/1410242882523459585... And this is a longer article about how IP and AI interact: https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-101-issue-2/copyright... I am not a lawyer, but I am capable of summarizing the thoughts of lawyers, so my take is that in general, fair use allow…

> Copyright has concluded that reading by robots doesn’t count. Infringement is for humans only; when computers do it, it’s fair use.

This would be interesting to test with AI and pop music.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#45
post #41
post #21

I really hope this weakens copyright. We can live without it.

Who can? Sure, Disney shouldn’t be able to copyright public domain works or Mickey Mouse until the end of time. But they also shouldn’t be able to swoop in, use your songs/artwork/software in their latest movie, without permission or appropriate compensation.

Hobbling copyright would likely make Disney et al much weaker in the future, to where this might not be as big of a deal.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#46

Some unknown person is trying to get some hype on “cancel github” cry. I don't give a shit about the Copilot, but I care even less about Rian Hunter and his statements.

>Some unknown person is trying to get some hype on “cancel github” cry.

>I don't give a shit about the Copilot, but I care even less about Rian Hunter and his statements.

This is untrue because you had a choice of not saying anything at all and carrying on (clearly not giving a shit) or take the time to leave such a comment (giving enough of a shit to inform everyone you don't give a shit.) So far this and Lloyd's is the only crying going on in this topic.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#47
post #28
post #8

While I understand the sentiment wasn’t Copilot trained on code not only hosted on GitHub, but found all over the Internet? Which means hosting your code yourself would not prevent GitHub from using it to train Copilot. That raises an interesting question though - how do you opt out? Is there even a way to do it?

I would like to know this too. I understand that GitHub is a private company and you have to accept their T&C, but surely they aren't allowed to use source code found elsewhere on the internet to train their ML models without asking for permission first unless it's a B2B cooperation such as with Stackoverflow.

[deleted]

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#48
It seems weird to do this over a feature that is still in technical preview, we don't even know if this product will ever ship publicly. I'm guessing a public release is still years off given the number issues they need to work through before release. My understanding is that they are working on an attribution system to catch cases with common code. Beyond that this person seems to use the MIT licensed code which already can be used internally by a company to host a proprietary service without attribution. It would make more sense to be outraged if you were using AGPL or something.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#49
post #5

This is a hell of a Pandora’s box that’s being cracked open here. Interesting times ahead. For example, if you believe these kinds of tools will become a huge competitive advantage, and that the inclusion of GPL code is a meaningful force multiplier, it kind of implies the fusion of AI code generation and the GPL will eat the world.

Only if people understand that the result is under GPL; if they don't, then this is a mechanism to slowly "launder" the work people put into GPL code to funnel into non-GPL codebases.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#50
post #14
post #8

While I understand the sentiment wasn’t Copilot trained on code not only hosted on GitHub, but found all over the Internet? Which means hosting your code yourself would not prevent GitHub from using it to train Copilot. That raises an interesting question though - how do you opt out? Is there even a way to do it?

I'm not surprised. I imagine all images on the internet are used to train image classifiers as well. It's a shitty future, but it's the one we have.

Researchers in our lab created a huge dataset of facial expressions from images on the web, annotated it and published the URLs to the images and the annotations for research but made sure to search only for images with proper licenses. I don't think that you are allowed to just go download any old image and train on it. I understand the many many people do it, but it's not legal (as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong).
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