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All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

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Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#251

Post by someone7x »

blendergeek wrote: post #181
schneidmaster wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a decent bit of caselaw indicating that computers reading and using a copyrighted work simply "don't count" in terms of copyright infringement -- only humans can infringe copyright. This article[0] does a pretty good job of summarizing the rationale that the courts have provided. My (non-lawyer) take is that GitHub is pushing this just half a step farther -- if computers can consume copyrighted material, and…

> There's a decent bit of caselaw indicating that computers reading and using a copyrighted work simply "don't count" in terms of copyright infringement -- only humans can infringe copyright. I have read variations of "computers don't commit copyright" more times than I can count in the past few days. How is Copilot different from a compiler? (Please give me the legal answer, not the technical answer. I now the diffe…

You just blew my mind with that analogy. I can only imagine some hair-splitting logic to rationalize a distinction.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#252

Post by jkaplowitz »

AaronFriel wrote: post #193
keonix wrote: post #185

If the training set contains verbatim (A)GPL code does this mean that Copilot also should be distributed by Microsoft under GPL? Because without it Copilot (as it is distributed by Microsoft) couldn't be built, wouldn't it make it a derivative work of GPL'd code (and obviously every other license)? I see a lot of people comparing human learning to machine learning in the comments, but there is a huge difference - we…

No, see Authors Guild v. Google. Even without a license or permission, fair use permits the mass scanning of books, the storage of the content of those books, and rendering verbatim snippets of those books. The Google Books site is not a derivative work of the millions of authors they copied from, and if they did copy any coincidentally GPL, AGPL, or creative commons copyleft work, the fair use exception applies befo…

The world is global. That's a US court ruling from one court of appeals. Most countries have narrower fair use rights than the US. Even if Copilot would fall within that legal precedent (far from guaranteed), a legal challenge in any jurisdiction worldwide outside the US states covered by that particular court of appeals, or which reaches the US Supreme Court, or which goes through the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals due to the initial complaint including a patent claim, would not be bound by that result and (especially in a different country) could very plausibly find otherwise.

What's more, if any of the code implements a patent, fair use does not cover patent law, and relying on fair use rather than a copyright license does not benefit from any patent use grant that may be included in the copyright license. If a codebase infringes a patent due to Copilot automatically adding the code, I can easily imagine GitHub being attributed shared contributory liability for the infringement by a court.

Not a lawyer, just a former law student and law feel layman who has paid attention to these subjects.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#253

Post by shadowgovt »

_Understated_ wrote: post #202
AaronFriel wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, see Authors Guild v. Google. Even without a license or permission, fair use permits the mass scanning of books, the storage of the content of those books, and rendering verbatim snippets of those books. The Google Books site is not a derivative work of the millions of authors they copied from, and if they did copy any coincidentally GPL, AGPL, or creative commons copyleft work, the fair use exception applies befo…

> By comparison, Copilot is even more obviously fair use. Not sure I see it that way. If I take your hard work that you clearly marked with a GPL license and then make money from it, not quite directly, but very closely, how is that fair use? Or legal? Copying and storing a book isn't recreating another book from it. Copilot is creating new stuff from the contents of the "books" in this case. Edit: I misunderstood fa…

> If I take your hard work that you clearly marked with a GPL license and then make money from it, not quite directly, but very closely, how is that fair use? Or legal?

If I'm Google, and I scan your code and return a link to it when people ask to find code like that (but show an ad next to that link for someone else's code that might solve their problem too), that's fair use and legal. My search engine has probably stored your code in a partial format, and that's fine.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#254

Post by stonemetal12 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #184
cool_dude85 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did copilot spring from the aether? Or was it built and trained on licensed code by github? Someone did something.

It's not a violation of copyright to train a model. There are three questions at play though: 1) Can you be liable for violating copyright if you have never seen the work? 2) Can a non-human be held accountable for violating copyright? 3) Can github be held liable for an end user using their tool to violate copyright? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity wikipedia states: Generally, copying cannot be…

1) So you are saying if I get a disk duplication machine I can freely copy and distribute blu ray disks as long as I don't watch the movie on the disk?

2,3) Seems pretty settled at this point, look at the cases around the VCR and copy machine. In general the one using the machine is liable. The creator of the machine can be held liable if there aren't substantial non infringing uses.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#255

Post by b3morales »

AaronFriel wrote: post #231
shakna wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, see Authors Guild v. Google. That case required that the output be transformative, in that "words in books are being used in a way they have not been used before". Copilot only fits the transformative aspect if it is not directly reciting code, that already exists in the form that it is redistributing. So long as it does so, it fails to meet the criteria.

Is there any evidence of Copilot producing substantial (100s of lines) verbatim copies of copyrighted works? Absent this, I don't think there's a case. The courts have given extraordinarily wide latitude to fair use and ML algorithms are routinely trained on copyrighted works, photos, etc. without a license. I understand that this feels more personal because it involves our field, but artists and authors have express…

The point of Copilot -- its entire value as a product -- is to produce code that matches the intent and semantics of code that was in the input. In other words, very deliberately not transformative in purpose.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#256

Post by IgorPartola »

keonix wrote: post #220
IgorPartola wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you view GPL code with your browser would that mean that your browser now has to be GPL as well? In the sense that copilot is not much different than a browser for Stack Overflow with some automation, why would it need to be GPLed? Your own code on the other hand…

To build a browser you don't need a verbatim GPL code, so it's not a derivative work in the same sense copilot is. Stackoverflow on the other hand is much trickier question...

SO clearly doesn’t need GPL code to be useful. The wider SE network is evidence of that.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#257

Post by agilob »

tedunangst wrote: post #216
agilob wrote: post #134

This means that also all illegally leaked codes from Apple, CDPR, Intel, NSA and Microsoft leaks are used in the models? iBoot, Witcher 3? Gwent? NSA backdoors? Does the copilot still learn from new repos? Can I post github enterprise code publicly to let it learn from it? Serious answers only please

Why would you think letting copilot scan the code would absolve you of liability for posting it?

I'm not asking about legality of posting the code, but reuse of this by the AI and users of the AI. "All public repositories" is a wide net full of surprises.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#258

Post by IgorPartola »

keonix wrote: post #246
IgorPartola wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the correct answer. IANAL but the copilot code vs the copilot training data are different things and licensing for one shouldn’t affect the other, right? And the fact that training data happens to also be code is incidental.

I assume the code is a derivative work of training data because given different data code would be also different (neuron weights)

If I read a GPL implementation of a linked list and then write my own linked list implementation, was my neural network in my brain a derivative work of the GPL code?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#260

Post by SavageBeast »

When I first read about the new copilot tool I immediately thought it would just be a matter of time before some group started poisoning the AI. Garbage in, garbage out right?

So now we know its ALL public repos ... how long until all the opponents of this tool have a giant repo full of syntactically correct code that employs terrible design patterns and is thoroughly obfuscated? I'm not going to waste my time on this personally but there are certainly those who will. Someone will invent a tool that perverts perfectly good code in the process and probably have a good laugh.

Personally, while I recognize some people might find it useful, I don't much care for it. No, I haven't tried it yet either. Ive never sampled escargot either and I know I don't care for it all the same. Maybe it's wonderful, I'll never know - but I do know that I simply don't like the idea of it. Call it an objection on General Principal if you like.

So remember kids, If you're not PAYING then you are the product.

Bottom line - private repos are cheap and you should use them rather than freebie public stuff.

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