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Copilot sells code other people wrote

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Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#341

Post by tremon »

jimnotgym wrote: post #285
meheleventyone wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this fair use? I don't think that's been established yet. And if it is why didn't MS and OpenAI train it on their private code repositories? Fair use for thee not for me isn't very in keeping with the spirit of that claim.

Just because there has not been a test case yet does not make it illegal! If MS think it is fair use then they are free to go ahead. Business is all about recognising and assesing risks like this.

And even if there had been a legal test case, that does not make it moral! If people think this is socially wrong then they're free to argue their case. Business is all about ignoring ethical quandaries if it gives them an edge.

"Microsoft does it, therefore it must be right" does not a sound argument make.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#342

Post by vbezhenar »

I somewhat agree with that. Yesterday I edited some exotic configuration (Kubernetes CSI driver for Cinder) and Copilot suggested me config which looked like someone's config. There were no values, so it was good at filtering them out, but it definitely looked like cleaned part of code which resides in some project.

I don't think that's bad though. Code sharing is good for overall productivity.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#344

Post by komadori »

meheleventyone wrote: post #223
zarzavat wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of a fair use right is that you don’t need the copyright owner’s permission to be able to exercise it. Fair use allows you to do things that the copyright owner doesn’t like. Is fair use on a massive scale still fair use? Courts generally think so, otherwise Google would have been out of business a long time ago.

Is this fair use? I don't think that's been established yet. And if it is why didn't MS and OpenAI train it on their private code repositories? Fair use for thee not for me isn't very in keeping with the spirit of that claim.

Gosh, can you imagine if they had trained it on their internal source code repositories and it constantly suggested using Hungarian notation for your variables? ;-)

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#345

Post by olalonde »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #337
olalonde wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You can be both a professional software developer and a caring human that considers ethics and exercises empathy. It's easy to convince oneself they can only be a professional developer to escape ethical responsibilities which require significant time and energy.

Of course you can and you should. But going from the Twitter bio and personal website, it doesn't appear to be the case here. They're an activist who lives from soliciting donations and selling 30$ videos on how to be anti-racist (like, literally).

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#346

Post by ok123456 »

bborud wrote: post #198

My personal reasons for not using copilot are a bit simpler. I believe the act of researching which solutions to use for a given problem is not so much about time, or the code you end up with, but about developing a better understanding of what you are doing. You may end up just cutting, pasting and modifying a piece of code you found, but hopefully, you were exposed to a few different ways to accomplish the same thi…

It replaces a few google searches to look up how to do something with a new language or library. Keeping you in your editor and from having to context switch, and possibly distract/derail you, is worth it.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#347

Post by jrumbut »

CrazyStat wrote: post #319
jrumbut wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think releasing a commercial product that copies people's code without complying with the license is anywhere near fair use. Also, the open source community has far less leverage to apply pressure to Google than it does to GitHub. We may be able to do something about this.

> I don't think releasing a commercial product that copies people's code without complying with the license is anywhere near fair use. The whole point of fair use is that the license doesn't matter. You can have a license that says I'm not allowed to use what you wrote for any purpose ever and I can still use it under fair use.

Yes but among the four factors that are used to evaluate fair use claims are whether it is being used commercially (it is) and how it affects the market for the thing that was copied (it clearly would since one way code is used is being imported by other code, if Copilot didn't insert my code into the new app, they might very well use my open source project that provides the same code).

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#348

Post by nojs »

meheleventyone wrote: post #158
HumanReadable wrote: post #151

Sorry for the unproductive tone of this comment, but there's something about the attitude of this tweet that really grinds my gears. Any time someone invents something new and incredible, there's always a crowd of negative nancies eager to discredit and explain why the invention is nothing new and a detrement to society. I don't understand why someone would willingly share their code on github where it is publicly av…

They own their code and it either has a license for use or is implicitly rights retained if not. If Copilot regurgitates their code, from a project that is public but with a non-permissive license they are having their IP rights violated so are totally correct in being unhappy about that. Just because you’ve made something cool doesn’t give you the right to harm others in the process. If MS or OpenAI don’t think this…

It doesn’t really “regurgitate code” all that much in practice though. It’s a super impressive product and these arguments seem more like people looking for an excuse to hate new, scary technology.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#349

Post by spupe »

jhugo wrote: post #297
spupe wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's an entirely different task than the user reading SO or using Google and then writing their own code, because the "AI" is not capable of writing its own code at that level. I would say it's a very similar task. If I need to remember how to use a certain function, I can Google for documentation and examples, or I can tell Copilot what I want to do. The fact that the solution was presented by Copilot or a SO th…

You really seem to be ignoring the core issue by focusing on SO though. Everything on SO is fair game, but code on GitHub is under a variety of licenses, and when Copilot regurgitates it, no matter how complex and inscrutable the process is that leads it to do so, it may be causing the user of Copilot to misuse that code because it doesn't even give them the opportunity to know where it came from or what license it w…

Again, how does that differ from Stack Overflow? Do you go and check whether a given reply belongs to a licensed project?

Also, please consider that there is a toggle that allows you to block Copilot from using public code.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#350

Post by pmarreck »

HumanReadable wrote: post #151

Sorry for the unproductive tone of this comment, but there's something about the attitude of this tweet that really grinds my gears. Any time someone invents something new and incredible, there's always a crowd of negative nancies eager to discredit and explain why the invention is nothing new and a detrement to society. I don't understand why someone would willingly share their code on github where it is publicly av…

I think copilot is amazing. I don't care what, if any, of my code snippets it uses because I also gain from it by skipping boilerplate (as well as things like bash idiosyncrasies). Using it feels like I am working with dozens of invisible collaborators
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