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Copilot sells code other people wrote

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Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#531

Post by concordDance »

tagyro wrote: post #162
coldtea wrote: post #86

> Hector Martin: If you use Copilot, you are basically playing Russian Roulette that the random mashup of existing, copyrighted, hegerogenously licensed code that you get out of it qualifies as an original work, mostly by chance. Or that nobody will ever sue you otherwise. Well, that's already the case with Stack Overflow copypasta enterprise code. If anything, use of Copilot would be an improvement...

Do people really copy/paste from StackOverflow? I feel this is more a meme, rather than reality. I do check StackOverflow, but never have I took an answer verbatim. I try to see if it's the same problem and what was the approach in deconstructing it, which I find more useful in the long run.

Anecdata: Everyone I work with does.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#532

Post by Hamuko »

dragonwriter wrote: post #516
Hamuko wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

Training Copilot is fair use, using Copilot is ???.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#533

Post by solveit »

rifty wrote: post #508
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #364

It 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?

> why not just claim copilot was used whenever accused of copyright infringement hence forth?

Without speaking to the particulars of copilot, this situation where laws seem toothless because of the ease of plausible deniability is actually fairly common. And in many such cases, the law is not as toothless as it seems, because

1. Getting multiple people to stick to a script under oath is difficult and dangerous.

2. Criminals frequently send each other messages like

A: "lol I just crimed, hope nobody figures it out."

B: "lol just say you used copilot".

A: "lolol yeah fuck the law"

Obviously this only gets the worst criminals, but there seems to be lots and lots of them.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#534

Post by noisy_boy »

Say, I want to write a getter method like below:

    String getName() {
        return name;
    }
Let us also assume that this snippet, unsurprisingly, has been in several copyrighted repos that didn't grant Github the right to share this code.

So I start tying "getName" and copilot suggests the exact snippet above. If I use this snippet, is it plagiarism? Even though the above code is the most "obvious" way to write this getter and I would have written it this way even without copilot's suggestion? Or does the "uniqueness" or "non-trivial quantity" of the suggestions have any bearing in determining copyright violation? How/where do we draw the line?

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#535

Post by nickjj »

This might be overreacting but is there a way to opt-out of Copilot using your code in open source repos?

It feels morally wrong to me that I can spend thousands of hours working on projects on my own free will but then a company can sell the code I wrote to others in the form of snippet completion as a service. In fact they end up selling your code back to yourself if you plan to use the service.

If the answer is no, that moves the needle pretty far in the direction where I'd at least consider the idea of moving all of my repos to Gitlab. I don't care much about stars or popularity. I open source things that are interesting and useful to me and if other folks want to use it they can but I don't gain motivation from others using the projects I release. I like Github and its UI and it's no doubt "the spot" for open source but selling code written by others rubs me the wrong way a lot. It stinks because it also means no longer contributing to other code bases too. It's moving us in the opposite direction of what open source is about.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#536

Post by ClumsyPilot »

scotty79 wrote: post #260
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does shady guy have his name on the side of a building, and run ads: "buy my shady stuff" and then pay taxes and his earning? That kind of shady guy?

Sometimes. Like Amazon, widely known for their workers and 3rd party vendor exploitation practices. You can no more claim ignorance of where the github copilot code comes from than where the Amazon's low, low prices come from. Whether you care is totally on you regardless of whether you pay ir not. You pay for product or service not moral absolution.

Are thousands of amazon employees going to be in same docket with me?

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#537

Post by ClumsyPilot »

wang_li wrote: post #455
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's my job to check my supplier, to make sure lines from co-pilot are legit. At the same time when fast fashion companies sell T-shirts made with slave labour, its not the company's responsebility to check what their suppliers are doing. And if tesla autopilot kills you and your family its not their fault either. Neoliberal morality - companies are never accountable for anything, it's heresy to suggest they shoul…

Other than the first sentence nothing you wrote is true. If a company doesn’t do due diligence on their suppliers they face fines and possibly criminal charges. The news came out the other day that the NTSB is considering whether to require Tesla to recall all their vehicles with self driving enabled. Companies of all types face huge fines and civil liability for product safety issues.

have you never googled "slavery fast fashion"?

Zara's clothes sometimes have notes in their pockets from people being held as slaves, pleading for help. I havent heard of anyone going to jail

most of our electronic waste end up illegally exported to poor countries, again when was the last tomw someone faced the music for that?

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#539

Post by nnoitra »

Hamuko wrote: post #444
rob74 wrote: post #58

Earlier 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…

Just what a horrible shady behavior.

Give us your money but you are responsible for the code that OUR tool generates.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#540

Post by Flimm »

tagyro wrote: post #162
coldtea wrote: post #86

> Hector Martin: If you use Copilot, you are basically playing Russian Roulette that the random mashup of existing, copyrighted, hegerogenously licensed code that you get out of it qualifies as an original work, mostly by chance. Or that nobody will ever sue you otherwise. Well, that's already the case with Stack Overflow copypasta enterprise code. If anything, use of Copilot would be an improvement...

Do people really copy/paste from StackOverflow? I feel this is more a meme, rather than reality. I do check StackOverflow, but never have I took an answer verbatim. I try to see if it's the same problem and what was the approach in deconstructing it, which I find more useful in the long run.

According to Stack Overflow's blog:

"One out of every four users who visits a Stack Overflow question copies something within five minutes of hitting the page."

https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/30/how-often-do-people-ac...

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