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Copilot sells code other people wrote

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Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#711

Post by leereeves »

jnsie wrote: post #688
ellyagg wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I hope your viewpoint doesn't win the day, because making code as freely shareable and remixable as possible is a huge boon for humanity.

It's just as shareable on Gitlab, no? And the issue isn't that code is not shareable - it's that a huge corporation is profiting from this code without consent from the developer.

> a huge corporation is profiting from this code without consent from the developer

Also without attribution. The more permissive licenses allow corporations to profit from shared code, but most of them still require attribution.

And it's really not much to ask: when someone gives you free code, give them credit for their work.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#712

Post by leereeves »

meshaneian wrote: post #668
davesque wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not without the text of the license. I, as a developer, cannot just poach open source code under MIT without including the copyright and terms from the original project. From the license: "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

They might argue that a snippet isn't a "substantial portion" of "the Software", and they're only charging for the service not the content - regardless, I don't like it, this is exactly what certain licenses attempt to prevent.

I would argue that substantial shouldn't be measured in lines of code, it should be measured in importance. Something like the fast inverse square root is substantial even though it's short.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#713

Post by jdbernard »

earnesti wrote: post #708
celeritascelery wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code being freely shareable and remixable is great. Selling that open source code for profit is not.

What is wrong with someone making a little dough. It is just numbers in database.

Yeah, but those numbers translate to food on the table for my kids, a roof over their heads, better education, etc. Come on, this is a tired response. Nothing is wrong with people making money. There is a lot wrong with people making money off of the hard work of others without any consideration or remuneration.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#714

Post by bayindirh »

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…

> I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today.

Me too. I also find three iterations of the same subject not enough discourse. We need to take this matter more seriously.

> But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement.

On the other hand, this whole discourse reminds me why I absolutely love Free Software as a movement.

> Copyright and licensing are bad, actually.

This is why we have "Copyleft".

> Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characters of fast square root is theft but 79 isn't.

And, stop getting into frenzy of arousal about being able to use any and every code piece you see elsewhere in any project regardless of its license.

> Where on earth is the ambition and vision!? Knowledge is public domain. A commons of knowledge is a public good. The cost of code copying is zero.

This is why GPL is important. It forces knowledge to evolve in the open, stay in the public domain and help it actually makes public good. It also doesn't hinder ambition and vision by not taking it to private domain, and keeping it open to everyone.

> Sure in our day job we have to pretend to care about this stuff. But when did the ideological scope of what can be achieved become rules lawyering over license text.

You might be pretending to care about this in your daily job, but we really care. Some of the projects I take part can't ever include GPL code (because the projects are MIT licensed). These texts are court-tested licenses, so they're as proper and serious agreements as the EULAs of "particular" software companies.

> Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps, in fact I want a truly public domain license but copyright law is so hostage to corporate interests no such thing exists in many countries.

If I want my code to be copied and possibly closed, I'll license it with MIT or BSD-0 and forget about it, but if I'm licensing my code with GPL3, it means I want that code to stay open. As a license, I expect anyone using that code to respect that license.

> Free the code.

Yes, and respect the license the author selected for his/her code.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#715

Post by Schroedingersat »

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…

The problem with this is 'freeing the code' in this instance leads to microsoft building a wall around it and asserting complete control in a few years.

Copyleft exists for a reason and without the ongoing fight for the commons we lose it all.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#716

Post by mihaic »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #340
mihaic wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of argument always distracts from the fact that figuring out where we draw the line between theft and reimagining. The Magnificent Seven for instance was a reworking of Seven Samurai, but stands on its own as an original creation. Going into a cinema and filming a picture to later put on a torrent site is not artistic reworking. The hard discussion is about what is acceptable, we all know prior art exists.

> This type of argument always distracts from the fact that figuring out where we draw the line between theft and reimagining. This seems to be missing a word, could you clarify? Also: since you mentioned theft: this actually comes down to the discussion whether you can own thought and/or digital artifacts which can be replicated without taking anything away from the "owner". Given the absolute choice I'd rather pick…

Sorry, I should have double checked, that sentence was incomplete. Yes, I meant to say that a more nuanced approach is crucial, and that means rejecting that we have to choose between Disney-backed extreme IP laws or total freedom.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#717

Post by ghusbands »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #685
Engineering-MD wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me regardless if it is technically legal, it certainly doesn’t feel right. Furthermore, contracts rely on people understanding what they are agreeing to, and I don’t think many developers would agree to letting the code be used outside the terms of the license they uploaded it under. I am very surprised there hasn’t been a legal challenge to it.

What, exactly, is there to challenge? “I’m sorry your honor I didn’t understand what I was signing” I don’t think has ever been a valid reason in a courtroom, similar to “I’m sorry I didn’t know I was committing a crime” is not a valid defense.

Courts interpret the intended and understood meaning of contracts and terms all the time. Research the term "meeting of the minds" and case law around it.

When the terms were written, it's exceedingly unlikely that they intended it or anyone understood it to be blanket permission to allow a trained AI to copy code for others and no user would have interpreted it that way. Microsoft/Github can't necessarily unilaterally increase the intended range without making it clear in the terms.

If it got to a court case, and both sides could afford it, it could be a lengthy one.

(This comment is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer.)

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#718

Post by zzo38computer »

monocasa wrote: post #630
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…

The issue is that whether the free software people want it or not, the copyright system over code exists, and historically has been used as a cudgel against smaller players. If we got rid of copyright over code entirely I'd totally be down for this. And IIRC RMS has said the same thing; that he'd be in favor of the removal of copyright over code as a concept even if it meant neutering the protections of the GPL. Unti…

> The issue is that whether the free software people want it or not, the copyright system over code exists, and historically has been used as a cudgel against smaller players. If we got rid of copyright over code entirely I'd totally be down for this. And IIRC RMS has said the same thing; that he'd be in favor of the removal of copyright over code as a concept even if it meant neutering the protections of the GPL.

As someone else asked, I would also want a citation, but I agree.

Actually, I want a license that you can do pretty much anything you want to do with it (including: lack of attribution, distribution without source codes, distribution with source codes (whether they are the original source codes or reconstructed), lack of copyright notices, reverse engineering, circumvention of your own copy and write reports about anything you want to do, to use or not use the software (and to modify or not modify) at your choice, etc), but that you are not allowed to add further legal restrictions to it (with a few exceptions dealing with trademarks (but not all) and allowing conversion to GNU (A)GPL 3 and CC-BY-SA 4.0 if you are able to satisfy the conditions of those licenses) or to derivative works, and that if someone will try to use legal processes against you relating to this, then anyone can countersue.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#719

Post by sirsinsalot »

alar44 wrote: post #691
sirsinsalot wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't everyone's feeling. And they have a right to choose how their work is used. Thats the basis of commerce being possible here. The mechanised license ignorance and the way original authors are not compensated is the issue. If you had a repo you'd worked really hard on, and offered a commercial license or GPL depending on the use (so you can be funded to work on it) ... do you think it is fair that copilo…

Saying an auto complete of a line of code is "using their work" is a massive stretch.

It isn't autocompleting "a line of code", it completes whole function bodies.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#720

Post by zzo38computer »

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #584
sirsinsalot wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 Nintend…

I also agree to abolish copyright and IP entirely.

I agree that people should be able to decompile/reverse engineer whatever the hell they want.

And if armed goons (whether goverment or if they are Microsoft or some company) kick down your doors, then they should be arrested for trespassing.

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