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Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#71

Post by lewhoo »

satvikpendem wrote: post #47

It's likely that generative AI in general will be deemed fair use, due to its (generally) transformative nature. Sure, if you really coax it, you can get code or images out that look similar to existing ones, but the courts might see that generally speaking, it produces new content that has not been seen before, especially in the case of images. Google Books literally copied and pasted books to add to their online da…

> Sure, if you really coax it, you can get code or images out that look similar to existing one

I'd say it is possible to produce exact data as well. Try "Provide quote from King James' Bible Genesis :1-25" with chatgpt. You'll get a verbatim text. You can get the same with things like Moby Dick, but when I typed "Provide the first five sentences of the book A Game Of Thrones" I got:

Certainly! Here are the first five sentences from the book "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin:

"We should start back," Gared

This content may violate our content policy or terms of use. If you believe this to be in error, please submit your feedback — your input will aid our research in this area.

The model is clearly capable of reproducing verbatim data I think.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#72

Post by tboyd47 »

esafak wrote: post #63
tboyd47 wrote: post #60

What is the financial upside Microsoft is seeing to this that no one else seems to see?

They can shoulder risks that other companies can't so they stand to capture more market share?

There is no market yet for a product that is unprecedented in nature.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#73

Post by sublinear »

dbmikus wrote: post #68
sublinear wrote: post #59

Yeah is it becoming clear enough to some people yet that you can't replace software engineers, let alone really help them, with AI? This is only going to get worse, not better. Copilot is such a flawed product from the start. It's not even a matter of its ability to write "good" code. The concept is just dumb. Code is necessarily consumed by people first before it's executed by a computer in a production environment.…

I use Copilot and it helps me out enough that I keep paying for it. ChatGPT is also often faster than Google or Stackoverflow for when I'm working with unfamiliar APIs.

It may get you to the first working iteration faster, but it doesn't help ship code faster.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#74

Post by hyperman1 »

CameronNemo wrote: post #10
heavyset_go wrote: post #8

You can now launder GPL code with the confidence that Microsoft's world class legal team will have your back if you're sued for it.

I don't know why it is just GPL people talk about. MPL, Apache, MIT licenses all have additional terms beyond a basic public domain equivalent license. None of those terms are being respected.

If you upload it to github, you give microsoft extra rights above the license you choose. I'm not sure they are bound by the license.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#75

Post by dbmikus »

sublinear wrote: post #73
dbmikus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Copilot and it helps me out enough that I keep paying for it. ChatGPT is also often faster than Google or Stackoverflow for when I'm working with unfamiliar APIs.

It may get you to the first working iteration faster, but it doesn't help ship code faster.

If my iteration times are faster, then I ship code faster.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#76

Post by frognumber »

fsdavcaa wrote: post #11

With a big asterik-- "customers... must not attempt to generate infringing materials..." It hinges on what *Microsoft* decides "attempting to generate infringing materials" means. You'd like it to mean that it only excludes use when you're doing something you know would infringe copyright, like "reproduce the entire half life 2 source code." But who knows.

Honestly, I trust Microsoft here.

I don't trust them to compete fairly. I don't trust them as an employer. I wouldn't them to not do corrupt things around national politics. I wouldn't want to be their partner in any meaningful project. I don't trust them around a lot of other things.

But one thing they do really well is reliable, long-term sustainable B2B. I do trust them as a business customer. If they exploited a loophole like that, their reputation would implode. I don't use Google Cloud Platform because they regularly screw over customers. I trust AWS and Azure because they don't.

The cost of paying for an infringement is likely a lot lower than the cost of losing that trust.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#77

Post by [deleted] »

CameronNemo wrote: post #45
adastra22 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compliance with MIT/X11 license just requires distributing the license file with the binary. If you infringe, it is trivial and costless to correct. Copyleft licenses are more troublesome for those who would rather not release source code. GPL is being used as a stand-in for all copyleft licenses.

It is not costless to correct if you don't know who's code was an input in the first place.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#78

Post by jacquesm »

satvikpendem wrote: post #47

It's likely that generative AI in general will be deemed fair use, due to its (generally) transformative nature. Sure, if you really coax it, you can get code or images out that look similar to existing ones, but the courts might see that generally speaking, it produces new content that has not been seen before, especially in the case of images. Google Books literally copied and pasted books to add to their online da…

Will you indemnify those that follow your advice?

Because 'transformative' is a pretty dangerous word to use in this context.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#79

Post by satvikpendem »

jacquesm wrote: post #78
satvikpendem wrote: post #47

It's likely that generative AI in general will be deemed fair use, due to its (generally) transformative nature. Sure, if you really coax it, you can get code or images out that look similar to existing ones, but the courts might see that generally speaking, it produces new content that has not been seen before, especially in the case of images. Google Books literally copied and pasted books to add to their online da…

Will you indemnify those that follow your advice? Because 'transformative' is a pretty dangerous word to use in this context.

No because I don't have that much money, but it looks like Microsoft will. They likely wouldn't if their lawyers did not think there was a reasonable chance that they'd win the lawsuits, likely from, again, generative AI being deemed fair use.

Re: Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot

#80

Post by naikrovek »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #57
naikrovek wrote: post #38

This is one of the things people on this site have been saying that Microsoft should do if they really stand behind Copilot, and now that they've done it, you have again moved the goalposts and this announcement is entirely insufficient. How dare they? amirite?

"people on this site" consists of thousands of people, including you, with a variety of opinions, and not everyone comments on every subject. You're basically complaining that not everyone believes the same thing.

"people on this site" includes the people I'm talking about, as well.

are you saying that I should name them specifically? or is "people" too general?

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