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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

#181

Post by 8note »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #115
jonnycomputer wrote: post #5

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

As a thought experiment: what do we all suppose would be the impact to Microsoft if they deliberately made public the proprietary source code for all of their publicly available commercial products and efforts (including licensed software, services; excluding private contracts, research), but the rest of their intellectual property and trade secrets remained private? Since I’m posing the question, here’s my guess: -…

If they released all the source, I'd be able to run the nice drawing app from windows inkspaces again, unkilling the app they want dead

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

#182

Post by SrslyJosh »

D13Fd wrote: post #176

If the code is public, my guess is that someone else stole it and added it to an open source repo without authorization. Microsoft may have then picked it up from there.

This just means that if you use Copilot for work, you're exposing yourself and/or your employer to unknown legal liability. =)

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

#183

Post by imwillofficial »

insanitybit wrote: post #149
Rimintil wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, ther…

> Sony later withdrew their copyright claim. Right, that's my point... I can sue anyone for anything, doesn't mean I'll win.

It worked out justified in this case.

The VAST majority of cases it does not.

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

#184

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

CapsAdmin wrote: post #173
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love free software and whatnot, but I have a feeling this situation would've been quite different if copilot was made by the free software community and accidentally trained on some non free code.. Precisely. Would it be okay for me to publish some code as GPL because my buddy gave it to me and promised that it was totally legit and I could use it and it definitely wasn't copy-pasted from one of the Windows sourc…

> Precisely. Would it be okay for me to publish some code as GPL because my buddy gave it to me and promised that it was totally legit and I could use it and it definitely wasn't copy-pasted from one of the Windows source leaks? But where do you draw the line? What if you accidentally came up with the same or similar solution to something in windows? The code might not be from your friend either, it could be from N s…

> But where do you draw the line? What if you accidentally came up with the same or similar solution to something in windows?

Yes, I agree that it's unclear how to deal with that in the general case at scale. Although cases like OP make me think that we could maybe worry about the grey area after we've dealt with the blatant copies.

> The code might not be from your friend either, it could be from N steps of copy paste, rework, reformating, refactoring, etc.

Well, my personal tendency would be to apply the same standard to Microsoft that they would apply to us. How many steps of removal is needed to copy MS proprietary code and it be okay?

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

#185

Post by imwillofficial »

stickfigure wrote: post #90
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,…

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

This makes no sense.

Absolutely nobody is arguing to make the world shittier

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

#186

Post by bayindirh »

psychphysic wrote: post #116
bayindirh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, with my software developer hat, am not excited by AI. Not a bit, honestly. Esp. about these big models trained on huge amount of data, without any consent. Let me be perfectly clear. I'm all for the tech. The capabilities are nice. The thing I'm strongly against is training these models on any data without any consent. GPT-3 is OK, training it with public stuff regardless of its license is not. Copilot is OK, trai…

I disagree. Those are effectively cases of cryptomnesia[0]. Part and parcel of learning. If you don't want broad access your work, don't upload it to a public repository. It's very simple. Good on you for recognising that you don't agree with what GitHub looks at data in public repos, but it's not their problem. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptomnesia

> Those are effectively cases of cryptomnesia.

Disagree, outputting training data as-is is not cryptomnesia. This is not Copilot's first case. It also reproduced ID software's fast inverse square root function as-is, including its comments, but without its license.

> If you don't want broad access your work, don't upload it to a public repository. It's very simple.

This is actually both funny and absurd. This is why we have licenses at this point. If all the licenses is moot, then this opens a very big can of worms...

My terms are simple. If you derive, share the derivation with the same license (xGPL). Copilot is deriving my code. If you use my code as a derivation point, honor the license, mark the derivation with GPL license. This voids your business case? I don't care. These are my terms.

If any public item can be used without any limitations, Getty Images (or any other stock photo business) is illegal. CC licensing shouldn't exist. GPL is moot. Even the most litigious software companies' cases (Oracle, SCO, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.) is moot. Just don't put it on public servers, eh?

Similarly, music and other fine arts are generally publicly accessible. So copyright on any and every production is also invalid as you say, because it's publicly available.

Why not put your case forward with attorneys of Disney, WB, Netflix and others? I'm sure they'll provide all their archives for training your video/image AI. Similarly Microsoft, Adobe, Mathworks, et al. will be thrilled to support your CoPilot competitor with their code, because a) Any similar code will be just cryptomnesia, b) The software produced from that code is publicly accessible anyway.

At this point, I even didn't touch to the fact that humans are trained much more differently than neural networks.

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

#187

Post by heavyset_go »

kodah wrote: post #160
cyanydeez wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, copyright is for people with copyright lawyers

That's not even a joke. One of the premises of a copyright is that you defend your intellectual property or lose it. If the system were more equitable then it would defend your copyright.

You're thinking of trademarks.

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

#188

Post by chiefalchemist »

Waterluvian wrote: post #167

I think people may be drastically over-valuing their code. If it was emitting an entire meaningful product, that would be something else. But it’s emitting nuts and bolts. If the issue is more specifically copyright infringement, then leverage the legal apparatus in place for that. Their lawyers might listen better. This is not a strongly held opinion and if you disagree I would love to hear your constructive thought…

To some extent I agree with your opening. That is, plenty of cases CP is showing how mundane most code is. It's one commodity stitched to another stitched to another.

That's not considering any legal / license issues, just a simple statement about the data used to train CP.

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

#189

Post by kortilla »

deworms wrote: post #147
stonogo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to send patches.

Why would I waste time doing this?

Because you were already willing to waste time panning his code on a public forum. Maybe do something constructive instead of destructive if your time is so precious.

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

#190

Post by teaearlgraycold »

SrslyJosh wrote: post #182
D13Fd wrote: post #176

If the code is public, my guess is that someone else stole it and added it to an open source repo without authorization. Microsoft may have then picked it up from there.

This just means that if you use Copilot for work, you're exposing yourself and/or your employer to unknown legal liability. =)

Not sure how you’d get caught if your code is kept private.
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