Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No right to relicense this project

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 388 posts

Re: No right to relicense this project

#241

Post by cardanome »

jdauriemma wrote: post #209
TZubiri wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok sure, in the alternative, here's the argument: The AI was trained with the code, so the complete rewrite is tainted and not a clean room. I can't believe this would need spelling out.

This is interesting and I'm not sure what to make of it. Devil's advocate: the person operating the AI also was "trained with the code," is that materially different from them writing it by hand vs. assisted by an LLM? Honestly asking, I hadn't considered this angle before.

If you worked at Microsoft and had access to the Windows source code you probably should not be contributing to WINE or similar projects as there would be legal risk.

So for this case, not much different legally. Of course there is the practical difference just like there is between me seeing you with my own eyes and me taking a picture of you.

"Training" an LLM ist not the same as training a human being. It a metaphor. Its confusing the save icon with an actual floppy disk.

I can say I "trained" my printer to print copyrighted material by feeding it bits but that that would be pure sophism.

Problem is that law hasn't really caught up the our brave new AI future yet so lots of decisions are up in the air. Plus governments incentivized to look the other way regarding copyright abuses when it comes to AI as they think that having competitive AI is of strategic importance.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#243

Post by Manuel_D »

twoodfin wrote: post #146
dathinab wrote: post #110

The argument that a rewrite is a copyright violation because they are familiar with the code base is not fully sound. "Insider Knowledge" is not relevant for copyright law. That is more in the space of patent law then copyright law. Or else a artist having seen a picture of a sunset over an empty ocean wouldn't be allowed to pain another sunset over an empty ocean as people could claim copyright violation. Through wh…

If I read Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and then proceed to write a structurally identical novel with many of the same story beats and character types, it will not be difficult to convince a jury exposed to these facts that I’ve created a derivative work. On the other hand, if I can prove to the jury’s satisfaction that I’ve never been exposed to Puzo’s work in any form, it’s independent creation.

To the contrary, there have been many cases of very similar novels with largely identical plot points and settings that survive copyright allegations, even if the author was exposed to the original work.

For a rather entertaining example (though raunchy, for a heads up): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhWWcWtAUoY&themeRefresh=1

Re: No right to relicense this project

#244

Post by dminor »

Another tangent that I didn't see in the thread is that the Supreme Court just confirmed a ruling that LLM created art isn't copyrightable since the author must be human for copyright to apply.

If the new code was generated entirely by an LLM, can it be licensed at all? Or is it automatically in the public domain?

Re: No right to relicense this project

#245

Post by Hamuko »

dminor wrote: post #244

Another tangent that I didn't see in the thread is that the Supreme Court just confirmed a ruling that LLM created art isn't copyrightable since the author must be human for copyright to apply. If the new code was generated entirely by an LLM, can it be licensed at all? Or is it automatically in the public domain?

It would be in the public domain. Wouldn't really matter all that much if the end goal was to get it included in the Python standard library, but the whole "Copyright (c) 2024 Dan Blanchard" in the license file would just be BS.

The big question is whether or not is it a derivative work of an LGPL project. If it is, then it's just an outright copyright violation.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#246

Post by simiones »

antirez wrote: post #116

I believe that Pilgrim here does not understand very well how copyright works: > Their claim that it is a "complete rewrite" is irrelevant, since they had ample exposure to the originally licensed code This is simply not true. The reason why the "clean room" concept exists is precisely since actually the law recognizes that independent implementations ARE possibile. The "clean room" thing is a trick to make the litig…

I think this is a bit too broad. There are actually three possible cases.

When there is similar code, the only defense possible to prove that you have not copied the original is to show that your process is a clean room re-implementation.

If the code is completely different, then clean room or not is indeed irrelevant. The only way the author can claim that you violated their copyright despite no apparent similarity is for them to have proof you followed some kind of mechanical process for generating the new code based on the old one, such as using an LLM with the old code as input prompt (TBD, completely unsettled: what if the old code is part of the training set, but was not part of the input?) - the burden of proof is on them to show that the dissimilarity is only apparent.

In realistic cases, you will have a mix of similar and dissimilar portions, and portions where the similarity is questionable. Each of these will need to be analyzed separately - and it's very likely that all the similar portions will need to be re-written again if you can't prove that they were not copied directly or from memory from the original, even if they represent a very small part of the work overall. Even if you wrote a 10k page book, if you copied one whole page verbatim from another book, you will be liable for that page, and the author may force you to take it out.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#247

Post by mgulick »

pocksuppet wrote: post #239
red_admiral wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the GPL help a user who doesn't write code themselves?

They have the right to use the code, and they have the right to use improvements that someone else made, and they have the right to get someone to make improvements for them.

They also have the guarantee that the code licensed under the GPL, and all future enhancements to it, will remain free software. The same is not true of the MIT license's weak-copyleft.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#248

Post by nilsbunger »

pocksuppet wrote: post #229
nilsbunger wrote: post #201

Does using the old version’s tests to create a new version make it a derivative work? That’s certainly some pretty tight coupling.

My gut feeling is no, a work is not a derivative of a compliance test suite that it passes and was used to guide it. But I'm not a lawyer.

We’re going to be in a very weird place:

* LLMs make it trivial to recreate almost any software using its test suite (maybe not a derivative work)

* LLM generated code has no copyright (according to current court interpretations)

Soon we will be able to make an unlicensed copy of anything if we have its test suite and a little money for tokens.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#250

Post by Someone »

simiones wrote: post #246
antirez wrote: post #116

I believe that Pilgrim here does not understand very well how copyright works: > Their claim that it is a "complete rewrite" is irrelevant, since they had ample exposure to the originally licensed code This is simply not true. The reason why the "clean room" concept exists is precisely since actually the law recognizes that independent implementations ARE possibile. The "clean room" thing is a trick to make the litig…

I think this is a bit too broad. There are actually three possible cases. When there is similar code, the only defense possible to prove that you have not copied the original is to show that your process is a clean room re-implementation. If the code is completely different, then clean room or not is indeed irrelevant. The only way the author can claim that you violated their copyright despite no apparent similarity…

> When there is similar code, the only defense possible to prove that you have not copied the original is to show that your process is a clean room re-implementation.

Yes, but you do not have to prove that you haven’t copied the original; you have to prove you didn’t infringe copyright. For that there are other possible defenses, for example:

- fair use

- claiming the copied part doesn’t require creativity

- arguing that the copied code was written by AI (there’s jurisdiction that says AI-generated art can’t be copyrighted (https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/19/23838458/ai-generated-art...). It’s not impossible judges will make similar judgments for AI-generated programs)

Post reply on HN