Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes
Source?
I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
101–110 of 545 posts
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#102I really hope this weakens copyright. We can live without it.
Don’t be too eager! Weakened copyright doesn’t necessarily translate to an overall benefit, at least for software.
Weakening copyright also weakens copyleft - for example, it seems reasonable to me that the producer of an open-source work should be entitled to require reciprocal openness from people who build upon it. If I can legitimately launder some GPL source code (say, a Linux kernel driver) through an ML model without being obliged to release the resulting code, I think everyone loses.
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#103All of my open-source stuff on GH is MIT. I don't care whether or not Copilot (or anyone else) uses it. I seriously doubt that Copilot scans my (very few) private repos. Even then, I don't think I do anything particularly noteworthy. But that is just me.
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Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
If humans understand this then presumably lawyers would start hunting for code replication caused by Copilot--using automated mechanisms similar to those used by professors at Universities to catch people cheating--and do the moral equivalent of ambulance chasing: offering to file all the paperwork on spec for a cut of an assured payout. But if people in general believe this to be fair use somehow, then GPL is essentially dead (I have been a big advocate for it over the years, and if people are doing this--and everyone thinks it is OK--then it loses the entire point as far as I am concerned).
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
According to the discussion at this link, you do not need permission to use copyrighted data to train AI models. Copyright prevents you from copying data, it doesn't prevent you from learning from it. https://twitter.com/luis_in_brief/status/1410985742268911631...
To train your model, yeah, probably ok. But I don't think anybody will see people using the duplicated code that AI insert on your codebase the same way.
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#106Earlier 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 is true, but there's also a murkier middle option. I used to work for a company that made a lot of money from its software patents but I was in a division that worked heavily in open-source code. We were forbidden to contribute to the high-value patented code because it was impossible to know whether we were "tainted" by knowledge of GPL code.
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#107Earlier 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…
> 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.
No - google's 9 lines of sorting algorithm (iirc) copied from Oracle's implementation were not considered fair use in the Google / Oracle debacle.
Likewise SCO claimed that 80 copied lines (in the entirety of the Linux source code) were a copyright violation, even if we never had a legal answer to this.
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#108I 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/
> Github does not own the Arctic Vault, there is an independent company behind it
Github are the ones doing all the archiving. So, in essence, they do own that. Piql are just the ones providing the storage: it's a commercial for-profit entity employed for backup by another commercial for-profit entity.
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#109I 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)
What's wrong with the Arctic Code Vault [1]? Is the only problem that they didn't seek your consent? How is it different to deploying a new availability zone and having your public repos accessible on another server? Your code is preserved verbatim, and it's not possible for GitHub to provide their service without the right to make verbatim copies of your code, which presumably you agreed to as part of their ToS. [1]…
I guess copying my code to microfiche is basically reprinting it without my permission.
Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It depends on which "people" you're referring to. I suspect the degree to which the programmer knows this is of little relevance to the question of how the legal + risk management implications will play out.
I mean general people people, not only developers: people includes managers and lawyers and politicians and everyone who might cause you to have GPL Copilot separate from MIT Copilot... the same people who right now cause licenses to matter, despite many developers not understanding anything about copyright law and just thinking "I'll steal that other developer's work as it makes my life easier".
If anything, I think the real test of this tech is going to be audio, as it has the right overlap of "big copyright is going to get pissed", "there already exist tools that attempt to automatically detect even small bits of infringement", "people actually litigate even small bits of infringement", and "it feels feasible in the near future": you whistle a tune, and the result is a fully produced backing track that sometimes happens to exactly sound like the band backing Taylor Swift on a recognizable song and generates Taylor Swift's voice, almost verbatim, singing some of her lyrics to go along with it.