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GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

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Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#331

Post by imran-iq »

jrm4 wrote: post #186

I'm still baffled as to why people treat Github like a public library despite being owned by what was at one time the greatest enemy of free and open source software in existence. Not saying they haven't changed their tune somewhat, but a library owned by Barnes and Noble is going to have very different incentives than an actual library. Made all the more silly by the fact that it's Git. You could just host it yourse…

> I'm still baffled as to why people treat Github like a public library

Because too many open source projects rely on it. Projects like crates.io force you to have a github account to use it. Most (neo)vim plugin managers give preferential treatment to github over other forges.

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#332

Post by semiquaver »

feoren wrote: post #269
toyg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't this fundamentally saying, "The cost of not infringing copyright is massive, so we will glibly infringe!" Copyright is not a natural human right; it's a construct invented and conferred by governments in order to achieve certain objectives. (It's more like a state license than a right, to be honest; using "right" was a historical masterstroke from the original inventors). As such, if those objectives can be p…

> Copyright is not a natural human right; it's a construct invented and conferred by governments in order to achieve certain objectives. (It's more like a state license than a right, to be honest; using "right" was a historical masterstroke from the original inventors). I don't know of a better definition for "natural human right" than "a right/privilege/protection given to everyone automatically, even if they don't…

  > We get to decide what our "natural human rights" are
Words have meaning. You can’t just make things up. The rights we invent through human constructs are the opposite of natural. Copyright is totally arbitrary and nothing at all like (for example) the right one has to their own life.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_rig...

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#333

Post by jrm4 »

fluoridation wrote: post #256
aliqot wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> acquire that goodwill and monetize it Embrace Extend Extinguish

That's not what EEE refers to. "Embrace" does not mean "buy".

It can, I think. The EEE concept is useful enough to go slightly outside its original intended use.

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#334

Post by ollien »

thealchemistdev wrote: post #327
jrm4 wrote: post #186

I'm still baffled as to why people treat Github like a public library despite being owned by what was at one time the greatest enemy of free and open source software in existence. Not saying they haven't changed their tune somewhat, but a library owned by Barnes and Noble is going to have very different incentives than an actual library. Made all the more silly by the fact that it's Git. You could just host it yourse…

I saw this a few months ago. local> ssh user@example.com user@example> git init --bare $DIR user@example> exit local> git clone user@example.com:$DIR I've seen VPS services for as low as $4 a month. I'm with you in camp baffled.

Heh - a former employer of mine used something similar to this to sync code between laptops and development VMs :) We had a script that made a temporary commit, and pushed to a git repository in the way you describe, then reverted that commit.

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#335

Post by jrm4 »

wand3r wrote: post #268
jrm4 wrote: post #186

I'm still baffled as to why people treat Github like a public library despite being owned by what was at one time the greatest enemy of free and open source software in existence. Not saying they haven't changed their tune somewhat, but a library owned by Barnes and Noble is going to have very different incentives than an actual library. Made all the more silly by the fact that it's Git. You could just host it yourse…

Eh, I have no love for Github but this is huge bikeshedding. This can apply to so many pieces of a software project that at some point you just aren't even working on a project. Every tool has tradeoffs and based on use github and gitlab are the kind of tradeoffs developers are willing to make

I'd disagree. I think it's a "Black Swan" esque problem. Software developers shouldn't use Github for their bread and butter, in the same way that I argue real businesses should pay for email and not use Gmail.

Sure, it might work fine forever, but when it doesn't, you're really screwed and you could have avoided that in a relatively simple way. Reminds me of seatbelts and fire extinguishers.

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#336

Post by throwaway4aday »

EamonnMR wrote: post #264
throwaway4aday wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I've used Copilot it never seems to copy whole sections of code. Can you provide examples of this? From what I've seen it is producing fairly generic boilerplate that has been modified based on the rest of the code in my repo so that it works with the other functions and even incorporates other pieces of my code in the same style that I'm using. The boilerplate aspect makes sense because this would be the mo…

Behold: https://twitter.com/StefanKarpinski/status/14109710611816816... Probably helps that this is from a codebase that's been forked quite a bit.

Yeah, I wanted an example from a real project not a one file demo. The high fork number and probably also its existence in thousands of other projects likely results in this behaviour if you have no surrounding context.

This is also easily solved by checking the box in Copilot that says not to produce any code matching public code.

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#337

Post by ClumsyPilot »

judge2020 wrote: post #140
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uploading someone else's code without permissions is, in itself, copyright infringement Suppose person A comitted a crime, that does not mean you are now allowed to profit from someone else's crime

But imagine Getty Images sells the stolen photo 10,000 times. They had no idea it was illegally stolen and fraudulently passed off as the fraudster's own work. If they get sued for infringement, they can just sue the actual fraudster for damages. Same will be for GitHub: if people really didn't have the legal authority to bind someone else's code to GitHub's TOS, then GitHub can go after the $x million of users that…

> They had no idea it was illegally stolen and fraudulently passed off

Thats doesnt mean. Getty can keep the money

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#338

Post by mattstir »

rockemsockem wrote: post #310
esperent wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would be a big deal if OpenAI/Copilot get shut down. Honestly it might be a good thing. Then we can generate new versions of these tools that are truly open using data that has been freely contributed, rather than obtained by for profit companies in shady cash grab.

And those tools will be similarly illegal if the court strikes down Copilot. Also it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to train things like Copilot and GPT-3, so can we really rely on innovation happening in open source without any way to recoup costs? I get that you might not like OpenAI/Copilot for creating these tools in the way that they did, but surely you have to see that this decision goes WAY beyond what…

You seem to completely miss the point about using data which was freely given. I would say that most of us like the idea of Copilot what OpenAI is accomplishing. The main issue stems from violating licenses which require attribution etc. As the article noted, one can get around attribution by getting express permission from the copyright holder (or by not using their work at all).

The fact of the matter is that some companies have made a paid service by violating the copyright of individuals. That's fundamentally not okay.

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#339

Post by londons_explore »

londons_explore wrote: post #95
visarga wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're facing a copyright extinction event. The whole concept is out of touch with the new reality - when you can generate 100 variations for your text, code or image with the click of a button, what does it even mean to hold copyright over the original? "In the style of" killed copyright in 2022.

As someone who would vote to repeal copyright entirely, because I think its downsides outweigh its benefits, this is a good thing.

I'd actually cut the term of all existing copyrights/patents by a factor of 10 (ie. 70 years goes down to 7, 1 additional year if you aren't dead yet.).

I'd then make a new combined copyright/patent system. You would get 1 year on anything creative. You can double the remaining time if you publish all the info necessary to easily recreate what you did. For software, that would be the source code. For music, the score and source recordings. For paintings, the source material and types of paint used, etc. For toys, the 3d design files, etc.

1/2 years of head start is plenty of head start to get your business going. I might make say a 10 year attribution requirement. I'd leave trademark law mostly as-is.

Re: GitHub is sued, and we may learn something about Creative Commons licensing

#340

Post by mhitza »

bastardoperator wrote: post #316
mhitza wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agreeing to GitHub's terms doesn't try to assign copyright over your code, it grabs licence to use your code however they see fit which is¹ legally quite different. I disagree, IANAL, and I'm happy they are getting sued. The fact that they are are foremost a code hosting/collaboration company and the terms of service we all agreed to when creating our accounts was to have them host our code, and use it however they…

The service is displaying code... also I'm unaware of any TOS/EULA that cannot be amended or changed post agreement.

Not really about disallowing amendments, but at least sending out a notice of the changing terms. Like you get with your privacy policy.

I'm pretty sure I didn't receive one about them using my public (although unpopular) open source code into their NN mixer.

Edit: Anyway a bit outside the point. It being, when your ever expanding set of services incorporate your ownership in ways unforseen when the agreement was made, opt-in would have been the agreeable aproach in my opinion. Even ignoring over the licensing woes, as that's something to be tested in courts with this lawsuit, and interesting to follow.

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