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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

#271

Post by VoodooJuJu »

As celestialcheese says [1], it seems like a manufactured case for the purpose of furthering someone's legal career rather than seeking remittance for any violations made by Copilot.

But I like to put on my conspiracy hat from time to time, and right now is one such time, so let's begin...

Though the motivations behind this case are uncertain, what is certain is that this case will establish a precedent. As we know, precedents are very important for any further rulings on cases of a similar nature.

Could it be the case that Microsoft has a hand in this, in trying to preempt a precedent that favors Copilot in any further litigation against it?

Wouldn't put it past a company like Microsoft.

Just a wild thought I had.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33457826

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#272

Post by leepowers »

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…

It's possible the complaint is using a trivial example to illustrate the type of argument plaintiffs want to make during any trial. A 200-line example is too unwieldy for non-programmers to digest, especially given the formatting constraints of a legal brief.

Look at paragraphs 90 and 91 on page 27 of the complaint[1]:

"90. GitHub concedes that in ordinary use, Copilot will reproduce passages of code verbatim: “Our latest internal research shows that about 1% of the time, a suggestion [Output] may contain some code snippets longer than ~150 characters that matches” code from the training data. This standard is more limited than is necessary for copyright infringement. But even using GitHub’s own metric and the most conservative possible criteria, Copilot has violated the DMCA at least tens of thousands of times."

Does distributing licensed code without attribution on a mass scale count as fair use?

If Copilot is inadvertently providing a programmer with copyrighted code, is that programmer and/or their employer responsible for copyright infringement?

There's a lot of interesting legal complications I think the courts will want to adjudicate.

[1] https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/pdf/1-0-github_complaint...

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#273

Post by MikePlacid »

lovich wrote: post #220
iudqnolq wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the core principles of the American system of government is that we outsource enforcement to private parties. Instead of the public needing to fund enforcement with tax dollars private parties undertake risky litigation in exchange for the chance of a big payoff. There is a reasonable argument that's a horrible system. But it doesn't make sense to criticize the plaintiff looking for a profit - the entire syste…

> But it doesn't make sense to criticize the plaintiff looking for a profit… I don’t know man, I can simultaneously see the systemic issue that needs to be solved and also critique someone for subcoming to base needs like greed when they don’t have the need.

But the need is obviously there. Everyone who produces the following code in a non-university environment - for a fee! - needs to be punished quickly and severely:

Based on the given prompt, [Codex] produced the following response:

     function isEven(n) {

       if (n == 0)

         return true;

       else if (n == 1)

         return false;

       else if (n

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#274

Post by Veen »

IshKebab wrote: post #253
jacooper wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. I put a license to be followed, not to just be disregarded by an AI as "Learning material". No human perfectly reproduces their learning material no matter what, but Copilot does.

So are you ok with it being illegal for humans to learn from copyrighted books unless they have a license that explicitly allows learning? That does not sound like a pleasant consequence.

It's a pleasant consequence for the person who spent years becoming an expert and then writing the book. It's also a pleasant consequence for the people who buy the book, which might not have existed without a copyright system to protect the writer's interests.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#276

Post by Taniwha »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #230
bjourne wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can "launder" away the license of any source code you have copied simply by deleting it! No snazzy neural network needed.. The litigants argument is that this is what GitHub CoPilot does. It allows others to publish derivative works of copyrighted works with the license deleted. Given that it apparently is trivial to get CoPilot to spit out nearly verbatim copies of the code that it was trained on, I don't think…

Is stable diffusion any different when including a famous artwork or artist in the prompt? The images produced are eerily similar to training data.

probably not and likely open to similar law suits - this is not really a bad thing

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#277

Post by solomatov »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #128

I think it's a great time to explain why this won't hit AI art such as Stable Diffusion, even if GitHub loses this case. The crux of the lawsuit's argument is that the AI unlawfully outputs copyrighted material . This is evident in many tests with many people here and on Twitter even getting verbatim comments out of it. AI art, in the other hand, is not capable of outputting the images from its training set, as it's…

IMO, the case is exactly the same for copilot and generative models for images. That's why it's so important to have some precedent as a guide for future products.

P.S. I am not a lawyer.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#278

Post by MontagFTB »

IshKebab wrote: post #253
jacooper wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. I put a license to be followed, not to just be disregarded by an AI as "Learning material". No human perfectly reproduces their learning material no matter what, but Copilot does.

So are you ok with it being illegal for humans to learn from copyrighted books unless they have a license that explicitly allows learning? That does not sound like a pleasant consequence.

I think they're taking issue with the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted code. That's distinct from learning how to code (which I don't think anyone would claim Copilot is doing) which people get from reading a book. If you were to read the book only to copy it verbatim and resell it, you're going to have a bad time.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#279

Post by test098 »

IshKebab wrote: post #253
jacooper wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. I put a license to be followed, not to just be disregarded by an AI as "Learning material". No human perfectly reproduces their learning material no matter what, but Copilot does.

So are you ok with it being illegal for humans to learn from copyrighted books unless they have a license that explicitly allows learning? That does not sound like a pleasant consequence.

Here's the thing - the US has well-established laws around copyright that don't consider learning from books a violation of those copyrights. This lawsuit is intended to challenge Copilot as a violation of licensing and isn't a litigation of "how people learn." Your program stole my code in violation of my license - there's a clear legal issue here.

I'd pose a question to you - would it be okay for me to copy/paste your code verbatim into my paid product in violation of your license and claim that I'm just using it for "learning"?

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#280

Post by karaterobot »

Does everybody credit the author when using Stack Overflow code? I have, but don't always. Not that I'm trying to steal, I just don't take the time, especially in personal projects.

This isn't exactly the same thing, but it seems to me that three of the biggest differences are:

1. Stack Overflow code is posted for people to use it (fair enough, but they do have a license that requires attribution anyway, so that's not an escape)

2. Scale (true; but is it a fundamental difference?)

3. People are paying attention in this case. Nobody is scanning my old code, or yours, but if they did, would they have a case?

I dunno. I'm more sympathetic to visual artists who have their work slurped up to be recapitulated as someone else's work via text to image models. Code, especially if it is posted publicly, doesn't feel like it needs to be guarded. I'm not saying this is correct, just saying that's my reaction, and I wonder why it's wrong.

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