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GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

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Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#81

Post by Rimintil »

insanitybit wrote: post #50
tpxl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Joe Rando plays a song from 1640 on a violin he gets a copyright claim on Youtube. When Jane Rando uses devtools to check a website source code she gets sued. When Microsoft steals all code on their platform and sells it, they get lauded. When "Open" AI steals thousands of copyrighted images and sells them, they get lauded. I am skeptical of imaginary property myself, but fuck this one set of rules for the poor,…

> Joe Rando plays a song from 1640 on a violin he gets a copyright claim on Youtube That can't possibly be a valid claim, right? AFAIK copyright is "gone" after the original author dies + ~70 years. Before fairly recently it was even shorter. Something from 1640 surely can't be claimed under copyright protection. There are much more recent changes where that might not be the case, but 1640? > When Jane Rando uses dev…

> That can't possibly be a valid claim, right?

It has indeed happened.

https://boingboing.net/2018/09/05/mozart-bach-sorta-mach.htm...

Sony later withdrew their copyright claim.

There are two pieces to copyright when it comes to public domain:

* The work (song) itself -- can't copyright that

* The recording -- you are the copyright owner. No one, without your permission, can re-post your recording

And of course, there is derivative work. You own any portion that is derivative of the original work.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#82

Post by ianbutler »

thorum wrote: post #29

What might be going on here is that Copilot pulls code it thinks may be relevant from other files in your VS Code project. You have the original code open in another tab, so Copilot uses it as a reference example. For evidence, see the generated comment under the Copilot completion: "Compare this snippet from Untitled-1.cpp" - that's the AI accidentally repeating the prompt it was given by Copilot.

I just tested it myself, and I most certainly do not have his source open, and it reproduced his code verbatim with just the function header in a random test c file I created in the middle of a rust project I'm working on.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#83

Post by akudha »

naikrovek wrote: post #28
jonnycomputer wrote: post #5

Microsoft should just train it on all their proprietary code instead. See how sanguine they are about it then.

who said they haven't. for something to show up verbatim in the output of a textual AI model it needs to be an input many times. I wonder if the problem is not copilot, but many people using this person's code without license or credit, and copilot being trained on those pieces of code as well. copilot may just be exposing a problem rather than creating one. I don't know much about AI, and I don't use copilot.

With the amount of resources that Microsoft has, how hard can it be for them to exclude proprietary code that other people have stolen? I’d bet it is easy for them, but they won’t do it. Because they don’t care, because who is gonna take on them?

Will they “accidentally” include proprietary code from say, Oracle? Nope. They’ll make sure of it. But Joe Random? Sure

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#84

Post by stefan_ »

belorn wrote: post #54
naikrovek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who said they haven't. for something to show up verbatim in the output of a textual AI model it needs to be an input many times. I wonder if the problem is not copilot, but many people using this person's code without license or credit, and copilot being trained on those pieces of code as well. copilot may just be exposing a problem rather than creating one. I don't know much about AI, and I don't use copilot.

Microsoft have a public statement that they don't use proprietary code, only public code with public licenses. They have a lot of companies as customers who uses github, and they also use a lot third-party code in their own products.

Even BSD et. al. have attribution requirements - that must be a vanishingly small amount of code to be used. Me thinks the people who run GitHub (who have apparently decided to abandon the core business for the latest fun project) aren't being entirely upfront.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#85

Post by ianbutler »

I just tested it myself on a random c file I created in the middle of a rust project I'm working on, it reproduced his full code verbatim from just the function header so clearly it does regurgitate proprietary code unlike some people have said, I do not have his source so co-pilot isn't just using existing context.

I've been finding co-pilot really useful but I'll be pausing it for now, and I'm glad I have only been using it on personal projects and not anything for work. This crosses the line in my head from legal ambiguity to legal "yeah that's gonna have to stop".

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#86

Post by stefan_ »

thorum wrote: post #29

What might be going on here is that Copilot pulls code it thinks may be relevant from other files in your VS Code project. You have the original code open in another tab, so Copilot uses it as a reference example. For evidence, see the generated comment under the Copilot completion: "Compare this snippet from Untitled-1.cpp" - that's the AI accidentally repeating the prompt it was given by Copilot.

Seems other people tried it? https://twitter.com/larrygritz/status/1581713252144517120

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#87

Post by bmitc »

What does

> with "public code" blocked

mean? Are you able set a setting in GitHub to tell GitHub that you don't want your code used for Copilot training data? Is this an abuse of the license you sign with GitHub, or did they update it at some point to allow your code to be automatically used in Copilot? I'm not crazy about the idea of paying GitHub for them to make money off of my code/data.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#90

Post by stickfigure »

tpxl wrote: post #16
acoustics wrote: post #6

I’ve noticed that people tend to disapprove of AI trained on their profession’s data, but are usually indifferent or positive about other applications of AI. For example, I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools. I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged b…

When Joe Rando plays a song from 1640 on a violin he gets a copyright claim on Youtube. When Jane Rando uses devtools to check a website source code she gets sued. When Microsoft steals all code on their platform and sells it, they get lauded. When "Open" AI steals thousands of copyrighted images and sells them, they get lauded. I am skeptical of imaginary property myself, but fuck this one set of rules for the poor,…

Yeah, inequality sucks. So how about we focus on making the world better for everyone instead of making the world equally shitty for everyone?
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