Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 734 posts

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#461

Post by bionhoward »

neonihil wrote: post #457

I think it’s pretty easy to defeat MS in court. We just need to bring the music industry into this! For example: Let’s train a network on Beatles music to generate new Beatles songs. I’m pretty sure music lawyers will find a way to prove that the trained network is violating the label’s copyright, as they always manage to do that. And then we just need to use the precedent and argue that music is the same thing as co…

Potentially dumb question from a guy who isn't a lawyer:

Does Copilot infringe Google's patent(s) on the Transformer architecture? If so, then Google could potentially sue them for royalties, at least.

Further, couldn't this Copilot thing backfire for Github because customer trust is more valuable than AI training data right now? If folks don't feel they can trust Github, seems like they could move their work to other version control systems like Gitlab or Bitbucket...

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#462

Post by jefftk »

jefftk wrote: post #292
belorn wrote: post #49

So why did GitHub chose to exclude private repositories? Why not include everything, including the code for windows?

In training on publicly accessible repositories, GitHub did something anybody could have done. If they also used private repositories, though, I would see that as abusing their position.

Additionally, if they had trained on private repositories then they risk leaking code, and accidentally making it public. Even if that was within fair use it would still be a violation of the trust people put in them.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#463

Post by ghoward »

jeremyjh wrote: post #456
ghoward wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* They both process source code as input. * They both produce software as output. * They both transform their input. * They both can combine different works to create a derivative work of each work. (Compilers do this with optimizations, especially inlining with link-time optimization.) They really do the same things, and yet, we say that the output of compilers is still under the license that the source code had. Wh…

> Why not Copilot? Because the sources used for input do not belong to the person operating the tool. If you say that doesn't matter, then you are saying open source licenses don't matter because the same thing applies - I could just run a tool (compiler) on someone else's code, and ignore the terms of their license when I redistribute the binary.

I think you have what I am saying backwards. I am saying that the licenses should apply to the output of Copilot, like they apply to the output of compilers.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#464

Post by planb »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #118
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

Movies are “public” too. That does not mean you are allowed to use them for any purpose. The term “Public” does not have specific legal consequences in copyright law outside of something being “public domain” as you say.

The question is: are you allowed to train a neural network on movies (e.g. For an automated color grading algorithm) and then sell that as a service?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#465

Post by hedora »

jeremyjh wrote: post #456
ghoward wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* They both process source code as input. * They both produce software as output. * They both transform their input. * They both can combine different works to create a derivative work of each work. (Compilers do this with optimizations, especially inlining with link-time optimization.) They really do the same things, and yet, we say that the output of compilers is still under the license that the source code had. Wh…

> Why not Copilot? Because the sources used for input do not belong to the person operating the tool. If you say that doesn't matter, then you are saying open source licenses don't matter because the same thing applies - I could just run a tool (compiler) on someone else's code, and ignore the terms of their license when I redistribute the binary.

No, I think that’s the point.

If I take some code I don’t have a license for, feed it to a compiler (perhaps with some -O4 option that uses deep learning because buzzwords), then is the resulting binary covered under fair use, and therefore free of all license restrictions?

If not, then how is what Copilot is doing any different?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#466

Post by Florin_Andrei »

neonihil wrote: post #457

I think it’s pretty easy to defeat MS in court. We just need to bring the music industry into this! For example: Let’s train a network on Beatles music to generate new Beatles songs. I’m pretty sure music lawyers will find a way to prove that the trained network is violating the label’s copyright, as they always manage to do that. And then we just need to use the precedent and argue that music is the same thing as co…

In ancient Rome they didn't have a police force. What they had was essentially muscle for hire, mercenary bands paid by rich and powerful folks to do their bidding. As a regular person, the only thing that could have protected you from one of these groups was another such group.

Same today with the licensing system.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#467

Post by BoxOfRain »

neonihil wrote: post #457

I think it’s pretty easy to defeat MS in court. We just need to bring the music industry into this! For example: Let’s train a network on Beatles music to generate new Beatles songs. I’m pretty sure music lawyers will find a way to prove that the trained network is violating the label’s copyright, as they always manage to do that. And then we just need to use the precedent and argue that music is the same thing as co…

There is an absolutely enormous archive of fan-taped Grateful Dead shows out there, someone with much more time and money than me needs to train a network on that!

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#469

Post by [deleted] »

bionhoward wrote: post #461
neonihil wrote: post #457

I think it’s pretty easy to defeat MS in court. We just need to bring the music industry into this! For example: Let’s train a network on Beatles music to generate new Beatles songs. I’m pretty sure music lawyers will find a way to prove that the trained network is violating the label’s copyright, as they always manage to do that. And then we just need to use the precedent and argue that music is the same thing as co…

Potentially dumb question from a guy who isn't a lawyer: Does Copilot infringe Google's patent(s) on the Transformer architecture? If so, then Google could potentially sue them for royalties, at least. Further, couldn't this Copilot thing backfire for Github because customer trust is more valuable than AI training data right now? If folks don't feel they can trust Github, seems like they could move their work to othe…

[deleted]

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#470

Post by Causality1 »

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…

Read the Authors Guild v Google dismissal. The court considered it fair use because Google's project was built explicitly to let users find and purchase books, giving revenue to the copyright holders. Copilot does not do that.
Post reply on HN