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

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

#271

Post by chrisseaton »

dahart wrote: post #128
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…

> Reading some copyrighted code can have you entirely excluded from some jobs What provision of copyright law are you referring to? Are you conflating copyright law with arbitrary organizational policies?

Who said it was a law?

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

#272

Post by dehrmann »

mmastrac wrote: post #44
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. This would be interesting to test with AI and pop music.

As far as IP protections go, they're similar, but the incentives are so different that you get songwriters going to court over bits of melodies that might be worth millions. Outside of quantitative trading, it's hard to find an example of 10 lines of code that are worth millions and couldn't easily be replaced with another implementation.

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

#273

Post by IncRnd »

mdpye wrote: post #267
IncRnd wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not "literally" stealing, because it doesn't deprive anyone of the use the source code. That's simply not true. You might be confusing idealism about software freedom with how both law and society define theft. Edit: In this comment I refer to the US.

It is actually true, in the UK at least the legal definition of theft includes the deprivation of the owner of the property in question. The copyright lobby hedge the term as "copyright theft" (i.e. not actual theft) in order to shift the societal understanding. Whish appears to have worked. This is not a value judgement on copyright infringement. Just that technically it doesn't meet the legal definition of theft. c…

Yes! Thank you. I should have clarified that I meant within the US.

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

#274

Post by visarga »

saurik wrote: post #87
crazygringo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

> 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

Github could make a blacklist and tell Copilot never to suggest that code. Problem solved. You use one of the other 9 suggestions.

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

#275

Post by edem »

kuon wrote: post #127

I've given thousands of hours to open source projects, I really think open source is a pillar of modern society. So you would think I am all for something like copilot, but no. At first I thought this was a great feature, because easier access to code, but after some reflection, I am also very skeptical. I am able to make my code open source, because I can make a living out of it, and I have a lot of open source code…

I second the DMCA, it is ridiculous.

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

#276

Post by Dylan16807 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #109
wcerfgba wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But LTO is fine? I was going to ask if it was because it's not intended as a backup, but that's not even true, this is intended as a backup on a long time scale.

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

#277

Post by dehrmann »

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…

I think the law will allow what copilot eventually becomes. As others have said, right now, it's too apt to reproduce code verbatim.

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

#278

Post by qayxc »

The irony of it all is that their code will find its way into the next Common Crawl release anyway and that's used to train GPT-3, which in turn forms the basis of OpenAI Codex, which is the product that CoPilot builds on...

So hosting elsewhere might not safe your code from ending up deep in the bowels of some corporate black-box ML model that occasionally regurgitates your IP if accidentally given the wrong (right?) prompt.

If you make your code public, you basically accept that someone will copy it verbatim. Other companies still might have it in their closed source product somewhere, even if it's just accidental copypasta from SO.

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

#279

Post by intricatedetail »

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 is a difference when human learns vs multi billion dollar company train their models without paying a penny.

Saying it is just like user, maybe they start paying taxes like individuals without access to creative accountants pay.

Leeches without morals - Micro$oft

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

#280

Post by visarga »

abeppu wrote: post #269
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…

Well, maybe the interpretation will change if the right people are pissed off. At this point, how hard would it be to produce a structurally similar "content-aware continuation/fill" for audio producers, film makers, etc, which suggests audio snippets or film snippets, trained from copyrighted source material? If prompted by a black screen with some white dots, the video tool could suggest a sequence of frames beginn…

NeRFs (neural radiance fields) are neural nets that exactly encode one input, kind of like a JPEG. They can reconstruct from novel viewpoints.
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