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

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

#71

Post by Retr0id » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #69

Retr0id wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Arctic Vault different from any other offsite backup? I suppose one issue is that you (presumably) can't request deletion from it (which may even be a GDPR violation). Edit: I looked up the relevant GDPR stuff, apparently there's an exemption for when "erasing your data would prejudice scientific or historical research, or archiving that is in the public interest.", which it arguably includes the Arctic Va…

GDPR only applies to EU users.

Arctic Vault includes code written by EU users, and there is similar legislation in non-EU jurisdictions, e.g. California's CCPA

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

#72

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

jcelerier wrote: post #61

lacker wrote: 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…

> As a human, I am allowed to read copyrighted code and learn from it. Of course not. Reading some copyrighted code can have you entirely excluded from some jobs - you can't become a wine contributor if it can be shown you ever read Windows source code and most likely conversely. Likewise, you can't ever write GPL VST 2 audio plug-ins if you ever had access to the official Steinberg VST2 SDK. Etc etc... Did people fo…

That's not what GP is saying.

In general, you're absolutely allowed to learn programming techniques from anywhere. You can contribute software almost anywhere even if you've read Windows source code. Re-using everything you've learned, in your own creative creation, is part of fair use.

Your example is the very specific scenario where you're attempting to replicate an entire program, API, etc., to identical specifications. That's obviously not fair use. You're not dealing with little bits and pieces, you're dealing with an entire finished product.

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

#73

Post by lifthrasiir » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

calvinmorrison wrote: post #38

I abandoned github when they put code that was not licensed (is: copyright retained) and reproduced it and saved it in their Arctic Vault without the authors consent (mine)

Github does not own the Arctic Vault, there is an independent company behind it [1]. Given its purpose as a long-term archival, it is likely that exemptions to the copyright for (library) archival can apply here. [EDIT: This is probably not true, see the reply for the reason.]

[1] https://www.piql.com/awa/

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

#74

Post by IncRnd » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

lacker wrote: 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…

> Nobody is really being hurt when a new tool makes it easier to copy little bits of code from the internet.

That's the first time I've heard copilot get described as copying little bits of code from the Internet. Copilot aggregates all github source code, removes licences from the code, and regurgitates the code without licenses.

Furthermore, both github and the programmers using copilot know this. Look at any one of these threads written by programmers about copilot. Using copilot is knowingly stealing the source code of others without attribution. Using copilot is literally humans stealing source code from others. Copilot was written for the purpose of taking other's code.

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

#75

Post by a3w » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

lacker wrote: 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…

In germany, there is no fair use exception to copyright. Also, there is no IP most software principles: e.g. writing a specific loop, that even an (weak) AI could suggest, would probably be too simple to be protected.

What could be valid is a right to not mimic collections, but that would mean you cannot clone the Copilot, as input is mapped to a non-trivial collection of outputs.

Disclaimer: IANAL, but I do dabble in IT-law.

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

#76

Post by CognitiveLens » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

calvinmorrison wrote: post #38

I abandoned github when they put code that was not licensed (is: copyright retained) and reproduced it and saved it in their Arctic Vault without the authors consent (mine)

I haven't read this interpretation of the Arctic Vault project - presumably most users of GitHub are okay with their code being reproduced/backed up across many production servers for fault tolerance. Making an 'extra special' long-term backup in the Arctic Vault doesn't seem like a meaningfully different action to me - i.e. using a cloud-based host is essentially opting in to this kind of 'license violation'.

If they had taken one of their existing DB/disk backups and called it a vault, would that have been an issue?

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

#77

Post by meibo » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #51

hashhar wrote: post #15

Why is this noteworthy? Who is this person? Am I missing something? I agree that there needs to be talk about licensing and copyright but with so "less/no content" there can be no meaningful discussion other than aimless banter.

> Who is this person? One of the beautiful things about HN is that you don't need to be anything, you just have to have something interesting to say.

This isn't interesting though. It doesn't even provide any value. It's a random guy that doesn't like GitHub, it could have just as well been a HN comment from yesterday.

It's just posted(not by the guy that made the page, mind you) to farm karma, exploit the news cycle and carve out some more space for discussion of this tired topic.

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

#78

Post by shakow » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

lacker wrote: 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.

Until someone trains a DNN to generate Mickey Mouse-like cartoons I assume.

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

#79

Post by pubby » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

lacker wrote: 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…

The issue isn't an AI reading copyrighted code, the issue is an AI regurgitating the lines of copyrighted code verbatim. To be clear, humans aren't allowed to do this either.

And sure, nobody cares about your stupid binary tree, but do they care about GNU and the Linux kernel? Imagine someone trained an AI to specifically output Linux code, and used it to reproduce a working OS. Is that fair?

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

#80

Post by 41209 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

lacker wrote: 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…

Copilot is lifting entire functions from GPL code. Legal technicality aside , I know I'd be upset if I gpl'ed some code and someone stole large parts of it.