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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

#161

Post by bombcar »

bugfix-66 wrote: post #138
an1sotropy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, and I'm no fan of copilot, but I wonder if this kind of clause (your #3) is going to fly: you're preemptively prohibiting certain kinds of reading of the code (when code is read by the ML model in training). But is that something a license can actually do? The legal footing that copyright gives you, on which licensing rests, certainly empowers you to limit things about how others may redistribute your work (an…

The license conditionally permits (i.e., controls) "redistribution and use in source and binary forms". I think we can constrain use with the third clause. My question is, how should we word that clause?

Many licenses have constraints, whether this wording is the best way to do it is up for discussion, but it's certainly possible to do it.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#162

Post by kochb »

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…

For this clause to have any positive effect, you need to 1) be willing to pursue legal action against violators and 2) actually notice that the clause has been violated.

Such language must be carefully written. What is the definition of “construction” and “operation” in a legal context? What is a “predictive software generation system”? That’s a very specific use case, you sure you covered everything you want to prohibit?

You’ve inserted your clause in such a way that this dependency cannot be used in any way to build anything similar to a “predictive software generation system”, even with attribution, as it would fail clause 3.

You have to consider that novel licenses make it difficult for any party that respects licenses to use your code. It is difficult to make one-off exceptions, especially when the text is not legally sound. So adoption of your project will be harmed.

So if you are serious about this license, you need a lawyer.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#163

Post by squokko »

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…

Just like good people can try to do good things and end up screwing things up badly, bad people can do bad things that have positive effects.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#165

Post by bogwog »

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…

That seems like a really bad choice of an example for this, but as I haven't read the document I don't have any other context beyond what you've posted here, I have to take your word for it that that's the purpose of this snippet.

However, if you are looking to understand the reasoning behind this lawsuit, there are lots of better examples online where Copilot blatantly ripped off open source code.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#166

Post by [deleted] »

Entinel wrote: post #111

I don't have a comment on this personally but I want to throw this out there because every time I see people criticizing Copilot or Dall-E someone always says "BUT ITS FAIR USE! Those people don't seem to grasp that "Fair Use" is a defense. The burden is not on me to prove what you are doing is not fair use; the burden is on you to prove what you are doing is fair use

[deleted]

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#168

Post by zeven7 »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #158

I'm not confident in this stance - sharing it to have a conversation. Hopefully some folks can help me think through this! The value of copyleft licenses, for me, was that we were fighting back against the notion of copyright. That you couldn't sell me a product that I wasn't allowed to modify and share my modifications back with others. The right to modify and redistribute transitively though the software license ga…

The only thing you're missing is that some people lost the plot and think it is all about copy left.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#170

Post by chiefalchemist »

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…

Agreed. But it could go the other way as well. Let's say MS / HB wins and the decision establishes and even less healthy / profitable (?) outcome over the long term.

Remember when Napster was all the rage. And then Jobs and Apple stepped in and set an expectation for the value of a song (at 99 cents)? And that made music into the razor and the iPod the much more profitable blades. Sure it pushed back Napster but artists - as the creator of the goods - have yet to recover.

I'm not saying this is the same thing. It's not. Only noting that today's "win" is tomorrow's loss. This very well could be a case of be careful what you wish for.

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