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We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

githubcopilotlitigation.com

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Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#141

Post by mardifoufs »

laputan_machine wrote: post #88
IceWreck wrote: post #34

I am not against this lawsuit but I'm against the implications of this because it can lead to disastrous laws. A programmer can read available but not oss licensed code and learn from it. Thats fair use. If a machine does it, is it wrong ? What is the line between copying and machine learning ? Where does overfitting come in ? Today they're filing a lawsuit against copilot. Tomorrow it will be against stable diffusio…

Genuinely one of the worst takes I've ever read. I'm not against the 'slippery slope' argument in principle, but this example is ridiculous.

Slippery slope? Are you familiar with judicial precedent? Being bound to precedents is central to common law legal systems, so I don't think the GP's take was so outlandish. "Slippery slopes" and "whataboutism" might be thought-terminating buzzwords online, but not in front of a judge.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#142

Post by bogwog »

IceWreck wrote: post #34

I am not against this lawsuit but I'm against the implications of this because it can lead to disastrous laws. A programmer can read available but not oss licensed code and learn from it. Thats fair use. If a machine does it, is it wrong ? What is the line between copying and machine learning ? Where does overfitting come in ? Today they're filing a lawsuit against copilot. Tomorrow it will be against stable diffusio…

> Today they're filing a lawsuit against copilot.

> Tomorrow it will be against stable diffusion or (dall-e, gpt-3 whatever)

> And then eventually against Wine/Proton and emulators (are APIs copyrightable)

Textbook definition of F.U.D.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#143

Post by bombcar »

herpderperator wrote: post #59

The title of the submitted PDF document: "Microsoft Word - 2022-11-02 Copilot Complaint (near final)"[0] I've noticed this a lot and it's quite funny seeing what the actual filename of the document was. Does this just get included as metadata by default when you export to PDF? [0] https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/pdf/1-0-github_complaint...

In word you can go to document properties or whatever and set the Title and some other fields to control what gets into the PDF.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#144

Post by judge2020 »

ketralnis wrote: post #46
abouttyme wrote: post #17

I suspect this will be the first of many lawsuits over training data sets. Just because it is obscured by artificial neural networks doesn't mean it's an original work that is not subject to copyright restrictions.

Yeah yeah my code produces the complete works of Micky Mouse but it's it's okay because _algorithms_!

I don't know why we're treating it as anything less than a human brain. A human can replicate a painting from memory or a picture of mickey mouse and that would likely be copyright infringement, but they could also take a drawing of Mickey Mouse sitting on the beach and given him a bloody knife & some sunglasses and it'd likely be fair use of the original art.

The AI can copy things if it wants, but it can also modify things to the point of being fair use, and it can even create new works with so little of any particular work that it's effectively creativity on the same level of humans when they draw something that popped into their heads.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#145

Post by glerk »

celestialcheese wrote: post #133

Maybe I'm being too cynical, but this feels like it's more a law firm and individual looking to profit and make their mark in legal history rather than an aggrieved individual looking for justice. Programmer/Lawyer Plaintiff + upstart SF Based Law Firm + novel technology = a good shot at a case that'll last a long time, and fertile ground to establish yourself as experts in what looks to be a heavily litigated area o…

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Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#146

Post by kube-system »

brookst wrote: post #44
dmitrygr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if i made napster 2.0 and said that it is your job to make sure that you do not download anything copyrighted, that would be ok?

The legal system takes intent into account. So if you produce napster 2.0 to be the best music piracy tool, and you test it for piracy, and you promote it for piracy... you're going to have trouble. If you produce napster 2.0 as a general purpose file sharing system, let's call it a torrent client, and you can claim no ill intent... you may have trouble but it's a lot more defensible in court. I would find it a big s…

> I would find it a big stretch to say Github's intent here is to illegally distribute copyrighted code.

Almost everything on GitHub is subject to copyright, except for some very old works (maybe something written by Ada Lovelace?), and US government works not eligible for copyright.

Now, many of the works there are also licensed under permissive licenses, but that is only a defense to copyright infringement if the terms of those licenses are being adequately fulfilled.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#147

Post by CrazyStat »

bugfix-66 wrote: post #28

Ask HN: I want to modify the BSD 2-Clause Open Source License to explicitly prohibit the use of the licensed software in training systems like Microsoft's Copilot (and use during inference). How should the third clause be worded? The No-AI 3-Clause Open Source Software License Copyright (C) All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided tha…

The legal theory for copilot is that training an ML model is fair use, not that the license allows it. If it is fair use then you can't prohibit it by license, no matter what you put in your license.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#148

Post by [deleted] »

Imnimo wrote: post #47

On page 18, they show Copilot produces the following code: >function isEven(n) { > return n % 2 === 0; >} They then say, "Copilot’s Output, like Codex’s, is derived from existing code. Namely, sample code that appears in the online book Mastering JS, written by Valeri Karpov." Surely everyone reading this has written that code verbatim at some point in their lives. How can they assert that this code is derived specif…

[deleted]

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#150

Post by amelius »

IceWreck wrote: post #34

I am not against this lawsuit but I'm against the implications of this because it can lead to disastrous laws. A programmer can read available but not oss licensed code and learn from it. Thats fair use. If a machine does it, is it wrong ? What is the line between copying and machine learning ? Where does overfitting come in ? Today they're filing a lawsuit against copilot. Tomorrow it will be against stable diffusio…

> If a machine does it, is it wrong ? What is the line between copying and machine learning ?

What is the difference between a neighbor watching you leave your home to visit the local grocery store and mass surveillance? Where do you draw the line?

It is pretty simple, actually.

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