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Copilot sells code other people wrote

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Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#581

Post by georgeecollins »

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

You may not care about licensing or copyright, and I imagine many others who create code under an attribution license don't. That's still not the same as saying "copyright and licensing are bad." Too many businesses depend on them to exist for me to have that opinion.

If an AI takes a copyright work and makes its own version-- say combining two novels by popular authors in a way that is unique but keeps large parts of the text intact, can I sell that? I think if I were the authors I would be unhappy.

Also, how hard would it be for copilot to include a comment saying "// I got this line from x repo" when you are copying from a new repo? I am guessing not hard at all. Then at least the user would be aware of where their code was coming from and could be expected to make a judgement. If the line is "let a = b" then probably no worries. But if it is hundreds of lines of a simulation, all from the same repo with no changes, then I think some attribution is good for both parties.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#582

Post by andybak »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #578
Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

"A commons of knowledge is a public good." Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form. If copilot were open source and the model released for the public good, being built of public data (in your scenario) we would have a very different conversation.

And I really don't mind.

I want every line of code I've ever written to be used as much as possible.

I find "intellectual property" to be dubious to the core. I'm not confident enough in my feelings to be a zealot, but if I had to pick sides then I know which side I would pick.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#583

Post by thamer »

jonny_eh wrote: post #558
nickjj wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your code is using a license that allows it, how could you possibly opt-out aside from using a different license? A repo setting that instructs Github not to use your code for Copilot, it could be a similar option as turning Discussions on / off. If they really want to win developers over they would even have Copilot scanning disabled by default but that'll never happen.

Sounds like you want a new license that just prohibits use by one company for one purpose.

There are other AI-based code completion systems than Copilot, at least Tabnine[1] and Kite[2] come to mind, I'm sure there are more.

[1] https://www.tabnine.com/

[2] https://www.kite.com/

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#584

Post by Guid_NewGuid »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #578
Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

"A commons of knowledge is a public good." Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form. If copilot were open source and the model released for the public good, being built of public data (in your scenario) we would have a very different conversation.

Yes they haven't paid it forward, or back, but why fight on the occupier's territory. By calling for legal frameworks to enforce this we accept the language and terms of the dominant party. By using courts and the law and creating new law for copyright we actually move further from the goal of abolishing copyright and IP entirely.

Every time we use courts to enforce IP we're strengthening the Walt Disneys and Nintendos of the world.

(I accept I am in a group of like 3 people with this goal but it's my view)

Edit: to expand slightly more on this. People should be able to decompile/reverse engineer whatever the hell they want. They shouldn't have to worry about armed goons kicking down their doors. Every time cases are used to strengthen the enforcement of IP/licensing, whether for the light (FSF) or dark (Micro$oft, Google, etc) the outcome is the same, we move further from that goal.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#585

Post by monocasa »

minhazm wrote: post #530
vorpalhex wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Actually the legal system is evidence based. Microsoft has evidence that the code they are producing is licensed under MIT as far as they can reasonably know. There's no definitive way to know that who actually owns the original copyright. I could grant permission to use my repo, but maybe I got that code from someone else, who then got it from someone else and so on and so forth. It's a similar situation with stolen…

Major aspects of copyright infringement are strict liability, like a lot of civil actions around damages. It doesn't matter if you thought it was OK, there's still a damaged party that needs compensation according to the law. At best you'll simply avoid the criminal and punitive penalties.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#586

Post by Closi »

lupire wrote: post #377
moffkalast wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I steal some code and put it on Github under MIT that doesn't really make it MIT, I'm just lying that it is. If Copilot then uses that it's still in violation of the law I'd assume (ignorance doesn't exonerate you etc.). So they'd have to verify on a case by case basis, which they obviously haven't given the volume of data they had to feed the thing. It's kinda shocking that they think they can sell this, even pro…

Why do you think that the recipient is responsible for verifying that no one else has copyright of code they recieved under license? Is every product user liable when a vendor ships some stolen code?

> Is every product user liable when a vendor ships some stolen code?

The user would be unlicensed, and in lieu of the vendor resolving this then the user would need to purchase licences to continue using the software legally (ie if a vendor gives you a pirate version of photoshop, you can’t just use it forever just because someone sold it to you).

There are usually clauses in enterprise software agreements that attribute liability for unlicenced components to the vendor for this reason. But ultimately if there isn’t a contract or the vendor vanishes, the user will need to go get a licence.

If you want to test the theory, I’ll send you a few images to put on your website, and when you get a claim through from the copyright owner you can try to argue that I sent it across without a copyright notice so I am liable ;)

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#587

Post by monocasa »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #554
minhazm wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the legal system is evidence based. Microsoft has evidence that the code they are producing is licensed under MIT as far as they can reasonably know. There's no definitive way to know that who actually owns the original copyright. I could grant permission to use my repo, but maybe I got that code from someone else, who then got it from someone else and so on and so forth. It's a similar situation with stolen…

Exactly, that's why Pornhub hasn't had any liability issues arising from where its content comes from either. It's just too darned hard to tell.

No, PornHub doesn't have liability in a lot of cases because of 17 § 512, but has still had to deal with liability in general, which is why they nuked some 80% of their library not backed by verified individuals a while back.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

A huge part of 17§512 is the DMCA takedown process mainly in 17§512(c)(3). Does Microsoft even have the ability to truly remove training data from the model? Or do they have to retrain on each DMCA takedown?

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#588

Post by Guid_NewGuid »

georgeecollins wrote: post #581
Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

You may not care about licensing or copyright, and I imagine many others who create code under an attribution license don't. That's still not the same as saying "copyright and licensing are bad." Too many businesses depend on them to exist for me to have that opinion. If an AI takes a copyright work and makes its own version-- say combining two novels by popular authors in a way that is unique but keeps large parts o…

Don't get me wrong, I know this (copyright abolition) is pie-in-the-sky stuff. I'm using an anon account to post because even advocating for it could be troublesome for employment. But I don't accept we have to be meek or have small goals in talking about this ideological stuff. And I think this has made me realise why I find the Free Software vision so disappointing and weak. And hence why I find all these (ideologically) Free Software aligned takes of sending Billy to jail for a thousand years so irritating.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#589

Post by bouke »

jaywalk wrote: post #550
nickjj wrote: post #535

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…

If your code is using a license that allows it, how could you possibly opt-out aside from using a different license?

Does GitHub verify that the code that is in my repository is actually in accordance to the license that I’ve added? I could just upload any proprietary code with an incorrect license, and GitHub would just use that to feed their AI. Like any other dependency that you incorporate into your application, GitHub should verify/audit whether the license allows them to do so.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#590

Post by monocasa »

throwaway23234 wrote: post #570
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…

Big meh. That quake code was MIT.

A) Public Quake is GPL. Just because someone else dumped it in an MIT library doesn't change that.

B) MIT still requires attribution to not infringe.

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