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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

#201

Post by owlbynight »

Has this person been in a coma? If I utilize a free service on the Internet, I'm trading for some kind of convenience with the knowledge that I am in some way being boned in the backend by teams of people, all of whom are likely more clever than I am and using my patronage to some kind of nefarious end.

The Internet isn't really a place to exercise an inflexible moral code. His new repository probably can be traced back to slave labor somehow if someone digs deep enough. Probably won't even take 6 degrees of separation.

If it makes it easier for me to code and gives me more time to do something other than work without doing irreprovable harm to some sentient entity, I'm firmly in the who gives a shit camp.

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

#202

Post by mhh__ »

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…

In my experience open source has now become so prevalent that I think some young developers could be completely caught out if the pendulum swings the other way.

Semi-related, the GNU/Linux copypasta is now more familiar to some than the GNU project in general - this is a shame to me as I view the copypasta to be mocking people who worked very hard to achieve what GNU has achieved asking for some credit.

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

#203

Post by canada_dry »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #166
wcerfgba wrote: post #31

I'm glad that Copilot is bringing the grey areas of copyright into discussion. If I write a book and it is copyright, what's the smallest unit which is covered by that copyright? Each word is obviously not. Some sentences will be fairly generic and I will not be the first person to write them. But some sentences will be characteristic of the work or my own style. Clearly how we apply copyright to subdivisions of an o…

The legal term for this is scènes à faire[0], and there is quite a bit of legal precedent covering exactly the cases you bring up. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scènes_à_faire

> Limits of the scènes à faire doctrine are a matter of degree — that is, operate on a continuum.

Copilot is certainly pushing that envelope.

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

#204

Post by einpoklum »

I wish I had the guts to leave only "tombstones" for my GitHub projects, pointing to other sites where they're actually stored.

Unfortunately, GitHub enjoys the effect of most people being on it (correct me if I'm wrong), and leaving it is costly, regardless of whether the alternative is a reasonable service or not.

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

#205

Post by yumraj »

axismundi wrote: post #164
brobdingnagians wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it goes back to closed source / trade secrets territory. If you have something you really don't want stolen, it is safer to never expose it and never trust that the law will fairly protect you. The irony is that copilot won't suggest its own source code, just everyone else's. It is open source without the benefits.

Smells like Microsoft

More like OpenAI

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

#206

Post by Engineering-MD »

wcerfgba wrote: post #31

I'm glad that Copilot is bringing the grey areas of copyright into discussion. If I write a book and it is copyright, what's the smallest unit which is covered by that copyright? Each word is obviously not. Some sentences will be fairly generic and I will not be the first person to write them. But some sentences will be characteristic of the work or my own style. Clearly how we apply copyright to subdivisions of an o…

I think an interesting analogy is if you rewrote a book in your own words but with each paragraphs meaning intact. So you rewrote Harry Potter but with slightly different sentence structures, but meaning was otherwise near identical. It’s that copyright infringement? I think it would certainly be plagiarism.

The other similar analogy is of translation: a translated work is still copied by ‘derived from’ copyright laws.

Is this just what copilot is doing in some ways but for smaller components?

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

#207

Post by lolinder »

WillDaSilva wrote: post #172
danielbln wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Codex (the tech underlying CoPilot) trained on purely publicly available repos?

The issue of deleted repositories being available through it would still exist. Whether or not GitHub should be blamed for that is another matter.

Once you put something on the internet, you should assume it still exists out there somewhere even after deleting it. Even before copilot, all credentials that end up in a repo needed to be changed. I'm not sure what's supposed to be different now.

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

#208

Post by dimgl »

_ofdw wrote: post #155

Feels like everyone is missing the point: Copilot will ultimately serve to weaken the arguments in support of software patents and copyright. That can only be a good thing for society (though perhaps not for rent seekers).

No no, we get it. Some people, like myself, still think that copyrights serve a purpose.

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

#209

Post by runawaybottle »

boxfire wrote: post #92
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…

So what happens when someone makes a transformer network that can read fanfics and animate them live trained from the whole collection of MPAA movies? I mean its inevitable. Given the history of the MPAA, I don't think they're gonna lie down and just take it. I feel like we're in a slippery slope to provoke the "IP lords" into brutally draconian measures that will make the Disney copyright extensions look like a tax…

We are toeing the crater line. Quite frankly, there’s clear evidence that humans have little regard for plagiarism versus inspiration.

Will co-pilot offer royalties for auto suggestions that are committed to code bases? I’m sure our ML can track how similar the commits were.

It’s always fascinating to me how we have the tech to take, but never to give. Pay the motherfucker you stole this shit from.

The proverbial: https://youtu.be/6TLo4Z_LWu4

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

#210

Post by saurik »

hawski wrote: post #198

I have some of my code BSD0 licensed (in practice public domain). One thing that I'm vary of regarding Copilot is: what would happen if my code would become a part of some proprietary code by a big multinational corporation and then they would DMCA me out? I'm a bit in the middle of a digital housekeeping and I think I will move my code somewhere else, because of it.

Your code will end up on GitHub anyway if other people find it useful, as the majority of developers don't even understand you can self host git repositories, so they only know how to do their own development by taking the code they find and putting it on GitHub first.
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