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All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

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Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#401

Post by ghoward »

fragileone wrote: post #99
ssivark wrote: post #64

Calling it “public” code feels like doublespeak. It’s most definitely NOT public domain code — it only happens to be hosted on GitHub and browsable ( but not copyable ) by people. “Source available for viewing” is very different from “public property” as the phrase is commonly understood: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_property

The word they're actually referring to here is "source available", and trying to use "public" is just to confuse people into thinking they're referring to public domain only.

Maybe they mean code that is in public (versus private) repos? And then use the word to make it seem like it's stuff in the public domain?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#402

Post by peteradio »

AaronFriel wrote: post #240
_Understated_ wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the concept of fair use (I think) but I can't see how it applies to Copilot. Google didn't create new books from the contents of existing ones (whether you agree that they should have been allowed to store the books or not) but Copilot is creating new code/apps from existing ones. Edit: I guess my understanding of fair use was wrong. I stand corrected.

If Google Books were creating new books, that would only help their argument. Transformativeness is one of the four parts of the fair use test. Copilot producing new, novel works (which may contain short verbatim snippets of GPL works) is a strong argument for transformativeness.

> short verbatim snippets of GPL works

Define short

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#403

Post by [deleted] »

jrm4 wrote: post #261
AaronFriel wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, see Authors Guild v. Google. Even without a license or permission, fair use permits the mass scanning of books, the storage of the content of those books, and rendering verbatim snippets of those books. The Google Books site is not a derivative work of the millions of authors they copied from, and if they did copy any coincidentally GPL, AGPL, or creative commons copyleft work, the fair use exception applies befo…

You're strongly and incorrectly implying that "Fair Use" is a clear (and relatively immutable) concept within copyright law, which couldn't be further from the truth. Even if this or that particular case sets out what appears to be solid grounds, one shouldn't take that as gospel by any means. This mostly has to do with the nature of the wishy-washy nature of the 4 part Fair Use test, which, unlike decent legal tests…

[deleted]

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#404

Post by kstrauser »

_Understated_ wrote: post #92

Ok, my curiosity has been fired here... I have conjured up two scenarios here: Let's say I use copilot to generate a bunch of code for an app, something substantial, and it regurgitates a load of bits and pieces from many sources it got from GitHub, I'd assume there won't be any attribution in it... it will be as if Copilot made the code itself (I know it sort of does but lets not split hairs!). I'm guessing the prev…

Suppose Copilot was Composer and it generated personalized songs for you after being trained on Spotify's library. If you started performing the resulting song and it contained recognizable clips of others, I guarantee you'd have lawyers coming after you.

I don't see this as fundamentally different. It's unlikely that the Free Software Foundation is going to track you down for including some GNU code in your single-user repo. If you used their stuff in a popular commercial project and they got wind of it, you might expect to receive a cease and desist at best.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#405

Post by jrochkind1 »

indigochill wrote: post #393
AaronFriel wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, see Authors Guild v. Google. Even without a license or permission, fair use permits the mass scanning of books, the storage of the content of those books, and rendering verbatim snippets of those books. The Google Books site is not a derivative work of the millions of authors they copied from, and if they did copy any coincidentally GPL, AGPL, or creative commons copyleft work, the fair use exception applies befo…

Next up, Copilot for college papers! Who needs to pay a professional paper-writer (ahem, I mean write the paper) when you can have an AI write your paper for you! It's fair use, so you're entitled to claim ownership to it, right?

I think you are confusing legal protections for intellectual property with plagiarism. (At least that's what I think you're doing if I read your comment as sarcasm and guess what you're trying to say non-sarcastically?) But they are entirely different things.

You can be violating copyright without plagiarizing, so long as you cite your source, but if you copy a copyright-protected work in an illegal way when doing so.

And you can be plagiarizing without violating copyright, if you have the permission of the copyright holder to use their content, or if the content is in the public domain and not protected by copyright, or if it's legal under fair use -- but you pass it off as your own work.

Two entirely separate things. You can get expelled from school for plaguriism without violating anyone's copyright, or prosecuted for copyright without committing any academic dishonesty.

You can indeed have the legal right to make use of content, under fair use or anything else, but it can still be plagiarism. That you have a fair use right does not mean "Oh so that means you are allowed to turn it in to your professor and get an A and the law says you must be allowed to do this and nobody can say otherwise!" -- no.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#406

Post by ElFitz »

AaronFriel wrote: post #193
keonix wrote: post #185

If the training set contains verbatim (A)GPL code does this mean that Copilot also should be distributed by Microsoft under GPL? Because without it Copilot (as it is distributed by Microsoft) couldn't be built, wouldn't it make it a derivative work of GPL'd code (and obviously every other license)? I see a lot of people comparing human learning to machine learning in the comments, but there is a huge difference - we…

No, see Authors Guild v. Google. Even without a license or permission, fair use permits the mass scanning of books, the storage of the content of those books, and rendering verbatim snippets of those books. The Google Books site is not a derivative work of the millions of authors they copied from, and if they did copy any coincidentally GPL, AGPL, or creative commons copyleft work, the fair use exception applies befo…

> Note, however, that there is no world-wide principle of fair use; what kinds of use are considered “fair” varies from country to country.

Exactly the point I came to make.

The Authors’ Guild is a US entity, and so is Google, so only US law applies. And thus, we have the Fair Use exception.

But developers sharing code on GitHub come from and live all over the world.

Now, Github’s ToS do include the usual provision stating that US & California law applies, et cætera, et cætera [1], but… and even they acknowledge it may be the case, such provisions usually aren’t considered legal outside of the US.

So… developers from outside the US, in countries with less lenient exceptions to copyright, definitely could sue them.

Identifying these countries and finding those developers, however, is a different matter altogether.

[1]: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o...

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#407

Post by [deleted] »

dpe82 wrote: post #238
IgorPartola wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you view GPL code with your browser would that mean that your browser now has to be GPL as well? In the sense that copilot is not much different than a browser for Stack Overflow with some automation, why would it need to be GPLed? Your own code on the other hand…

Or if you simply read GPL code and learn something from it - or bits of the code are retained verbatim in your memory, are you (as a person) now GPL'd? Obviously not.

[deleted]

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#408

Post by LocalH »

schneidmaster wrote: post #162
_Understated_ wrote: post #92

Ok, my curiosity has been fired here... I have conjured up two scenarios here: Let's say I use copilot to generate a bunch of code for an app, something substantial, and it regurgitates a load of bits and pieces from many sources it got from GitHub, I'd assume there won't be any attribution in it... it will be as if Copilot made the code itself (I know it sort of does but lets not split hairs!). I'm guessing the prev…

There's a decent bit of caselaw indicating that computers reading and using a copyrighted work simply "don't count" in terms of copyright infringement -- only humans can infringe copyright. This article[0] does a pretty good job of summarizing the rationale that the courts have provided. My (non-lawyer) take is that GitHub is pushing this just half a step farther -- if computers can consume copyrighted material, and…

That’s funny, because the bedrock of copyright - insofar as software is concerned - is entirely predicated on the idea that a computer copying code into RAM to execute it is indeed a copyright violation outside of a license to do so.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#409

Post by Ajedi32 »

mrh0057 wrote: post #345
Luker88 wrote: post #335

Like it or not, it seems like: * most people here are unhappy * most laywers will say it's fine (it very probably passed MS ones) I can understand that. Copyright was not created with AI/ML in mind, even as a random stray thought. Those were not even words at the time. So the question is: If we change the law and require trained algorithms to only work on licenses that permit this, and to output the "minimum common l…

There is nothing intelligent about this. What they did is a context aware search and trying to claim that not what this is. If it was just used as a search engine and people weren’t using the results or following the license of the original source, then it would fine. There has been so much of a hype of machine learning people likely have a false impression of what it is.

I've seen this claim that Copilot is "just a search engine" repeated in multiple places now. It's wrong; as anyone familiar with any of the GPT variants or other similar autoregressive language models can attest.

Copilot isn't a search engine any more than any other language model is. It can sometimes output data from the training set verbatim as most AI models do from time to time, but that is the exception not the rule.

Whether modern autoregressive language models can be called "inteligent" is debatable, but they're certainly far beyond what you'd get from a simple search engine.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#410

Post by infogulch »

AaronFriel wrote: post #231
shakna wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, see Authors Guild v. Google. That case required that the output be transformative, in that "words in books are being used in a way they have not been used before". Copilot only fits the transformative aspect if it is not directly reciting code, that already exists in the form that it is redistributing. So long as it does so, it fails to meet the criteria.

Is there any evidence of Copilot producing substantial (100s of lines) verbatim copies of copyrighted works? Absent this, I don't think there's a case. The courts have given extraordinarily wide latitude to fair use and ML algorithms are routinely trained on copyrighted works, photos, etc. without a license. I understand that this feels more personal because it involves our field, but artists and authors have express…

Why did you choose the standard of "substantial" = "100s of lines"? Especially since we've already seen examples of verbatim output in the dozens of lines range, that choice of standard is rather conveniently just outside what exists so far. If we find a case with 200 lines of verbatim output will you say the only reasonable standard is 1000s of lines?

I don't think your argument is as strong as you're making it out to be.

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