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

thelig.ht

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

#81

Post by josefx »

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. Infringement is for humans only; when computers do it, it’s fair use.

So wait, if I write my own AI, lets call it cp, and train it on gnu-gcc.tar.gz with the goal of creating a commercial-compiler.tar.gz then I can license the result any way I want? After all most of the work was done by the computer.

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

#82

Post by eatbitseveryday »

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…

> > As a human, I am allowed to read copyrighted code and learn from it.

> Of course not. Reading some copyrighted code can make 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.

You can of course read the code. The consequences are thus increased limitations, like you say.

What you mention is not an absolute restriction from reading copyrighted material. You perhaps have to cease other activities as a result.

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

#83

Post by dmitriid »

shakow wrote: post #78
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.

There was a joke that all ML will be immediately banned the moment there's a Copilot for RIAA-licensed songs.

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

#85

Post by corty »

Retr0id wrote: post #59
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)

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…

There is an exception paragraph for various kinds of archives in GDPR: https://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/article-89-safeguards-a...

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

#86

Post by eitland »

meibo wrote: post #77
eitland wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If it sparks the necessary discussions I don't care if it was written by Joe Random Nobody or Joe Biden.

> It's just posted(not by the guy that made the page, mind you)

Others would complain if the author himself had posted this.

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

#87

Post by saurik »

crazygringo wrote: post #72
jcelerier wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 specific…

This model doesn't learn and abstract: it just pattern matches and replicates; that's why it was shown exactly replicating regions of code--long enough to not be "de minimis" and recognizable enough to include the comments--that happen to be popular... which would be fine, as long as the license on said code were also being replicated. It just isn't reasonable to try to pretend Copilot--or GPT-3 in general--is some kind of general purpose AI worthy of being compared with the fair use rights of a human learning techniques: this is a machine learning model that likes to copy/paste not just tiny bits of code but entire functions out of other peoples' projects, and most of what makes it fancy is that it is good at adapting what it copies to the surrounding conditions.

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

#88

Post by xbar »

saurik wrote: post #49
gfodor wrote: 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.

Why is human understanding going to prevent this? Doesn't it seem like this is precisely the de facto function of Copilot: a license laundering machine?

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

#89

Post by blibble »

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…

there's a nice example here of it reproducing carmack's famous inverse square root function from Quake 3 (sans GPL, of course)

https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309

this is clearly copyright infringement, and if it isn't: it should be

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