At every turn, in every instance, for decades, all stories involving Microsoft end in "...and then Microsoft fucked people over." I've witnessed this firsthand since the 80s.
Copilot sells code other people wrote
511–520 of 838 posts
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#512license issues will save many thousand jobs.
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#513It is now proven that copilot returns code from codebases with non-permissive licenses [1]. I'm curious - what are the legal implications of this going forward? I've so many questions. 1. Will Microsoft ever face lawsuits for these license violations? 2. If so, who/how? Class-action? 3. Will copilot be forced to open-source in the future? Under which license? Some open source licenses are incompatible with others, bu…
That regurgitated code exists on Github exists under an MIT license: https://github.com/jethrodaniel/fast_inv_sqrt "jethrodaniel" does not appear to have the copyright to offer that license, but it's hard for Github to determine that in general, so I doubt they would be liable for the error.
That doesn't stop youtube from blasting people away over copyright issues?
On youtube, video uploads are a cost center, whereas on github, code is a profit center
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#514Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems disingenous. People don’t have a problem that AI is being used in some form to provide the service. The complaint is pretty clearly that code is being lifted from repositories without attribution or compensation, and being redistributed into other applications. How impressive the work behind copilot is or is not really isn’t relevant.
This is how it always works, though. Moderna is standing on the shoulders of centuries of cumulative human knowledge without compensating all the sources of that knowledge. Musicians learn from other musicians and imitate to an extent, which is why all the musicians in a genre sound very similar, and we don't see present day rappers compensating the previous generation of rappers. This is where some modest taxation c…
> This is where some modest taxation comes in. To reallocate a slice of the output of value creation to its actual source in a rough kind of way wherever more direct compensation isn't feasible.
I was with you until this statement. The vast majority of society consumes, but doesn't create something new in the process. I'm bewildered as to why you think taxation is a solution rather than a disincentive towards creating. As far as compensating the giants upon whose shoulders most stand, there are plenty of vehicles for that: royalties, patents, copyrights, pensions, awards and prizes, paid fellowships, etc. These are relatively easy to calculate and write a contract for.
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#515[deleted]
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#516Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But if you do the second thing you are not a great dev, and would have probably ended up copy pasting it anyway. If you do that on your own, it's your (legal) responsibility. If Copilot does it for you, it's GitHub's/Microsoft's responsibility.
> If Copilot does it for you, it's GitHub's/Microsoft's responsibility. GitHub/Microsoft says that it's still your responsibility. > You should take the same precautions as you would with any code you write that uses material you did not independently originate. These include rigorous testing, IP scanning, and checking for security vulnerabilities. You should make sure your IDE or editor does not automatically compil…
> GitHub/Microsoft says that it's still your responsibility
If Copilot is fair use, and has no restrictive license, than how is it anyone's responsibility?
If Copilot isn't fair use, it's Microsoft's responsibility.
(For copyright; for patent that's another issue, but you can violate patents by similarity without exposure or copying, anyway.)
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#517It is now proven that copilot returns code from codebases with non-permissive licenses [1]. I'm curious - what are the legal implications of this going forward? I've so many questions. 1. Will Microsoft ever face lawsuits for these license violations? 2. If so, who/how? Class-action? 3. Will copilot be forced to open-source in the future? Under which license? Some open source licenses are incompatible with others, bu…
That regurgitated code exists on Github exists under an MIT license: https://github.com/jethrodaniel/fast_inv_sqrt "jethrodaniel" does not appear to have the copyright to offer that license, but it's hard for Github to determine that in general, so I doubt they would be liable for the error.
> but it's hard for Github to determine that in general, so I doubt they would be liable for the error.
Please insert that meme, "That's not how that works. That's not how any of this works!"
The legal system is permission based, not forgiveness or "I didn't know" based.
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#518It is incredible to use though. I pasted the return value of an API call in comment, then started to write a schema class. Codepilot just created the entire class for me. wanted to extract a subset of the data, I typed get_(), it wrote the code I would have written.
So even without using someone else code, just the pattern understanding and the production of simple boiler plate code is great.
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#519I do feel these arguments are valid if a little overstated. Most devs have googled, found some code, and pasted it in without thinking about attribution. Doesn’t make it right, but it is a question of how much code is being copied and how specific. For example, I peruse open repos to learn - I learned about the spread operator in JavaScript that way- doesn’t mean every time I use it I need to attribute whatever repo…
> Also, they should totally pay back a portion of revenue to the community and support the repos used to train. Aren’t they already doubling all Github sponsorship money?
Not doubled any more, but they don't take a cut, and pay the processing fees for you.
Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote
#520It is now proven that copilot returns code from codebases with non-permissive licenses [1]. I'm curious - what are the legal implications of this going forward? I've so many questions. 1. Will Microsoft ever face lawsuits for these license violations? 2. If so, who/how? Class-action? 3. Will copilot be forced to open-source in the future? Under which license? Some open source licenses are incompatible with others, bu…
It seems like Microsoft could be in the clear on the basis of it being essentially "search". But it also seems like anyone who uses it could be risking to a high degree getting infected with copyright violating code. My question is, if it isn't a copyright infringement issue to use copilot in its current form right now, why not just claim copilot was used whenever accused of copyright infringement hence forth?
Microsoft is trying to legally position Copilot like StackOverflow. It is possible to post copyright-infringing code on SO even though their TOS requires a CC BY-SA 4.0 grant to the company and its users.