All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot • Hacker News Board

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#361

Post by AaronFriel » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

shakna wrote: post #336

AaronFriel wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly, the nine line question wasn't decided by the supreme court, but the API question was. The Supreme Court did hold that the 11,500 lines of API code copied verbatim constituted fair use. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf

> The Supreme Court did hold that the 11,500 lines of API code copied verbatim constituted fair use. Yes, because it was _transformative_, in a clear way. Because an API is only an interface. Which makes that part of that decision largely irrelevant to the topic at hand. > Google’s limited copying of the API is a transformative use. Google copied only what was needed to allow programmers to work in a different compu-…

A $0 settlement means there is no binding precedent and signals to me that Oracle's attorneys felt they didn't have a strong argument and a potential for more.

If they felt the nine line function made Google's entire library an unlicensed derivative work, they would have pressed their case.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#362

Post by nonameiguess » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Luker88 wrote: post #335

Like it or not, it seems like: * most people here are unhappy * most laywers will say it's fine (it very probably passed MS ones) I can understand that. Copyright was not created with AI/ML in mind, even as a random stray thought. Those were not even words at the time. So the question is: If we change the law and require trained algorithms to only work on licenses that permit this, and to output the "minimum common l…

Standard caveat that I'm not a lawyer by any stretch, but this seems settled by the existence of text-generation assistants trained on the full corpus of human writing ever digitized, much of which is also copyrighted or licensed in some way. That is clearly fine, as training text generation programs on existing text has been standard for decades. Selling a product based on GPT-3 is fine and the law has not come after anyone trying to do that.

The more questionable line is if someone happens to inadvertently reproduce entire paragraphs of Twilight: Breaking Dawn word-for-word using GPT-3 and then sells it, that might be a violation even if they didn't realize they were doing it.

Copilot is the same thing. Creating a product that makes suggestions that it learned from reading other people's work is fine. Now if you write code using Copilot and happen to reproduce some part of glibc down to the variable names, and don't release it under GPL, you might be in trouble. But Copilot won't be.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#363

Post by nonfamous » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

_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…

For your specific case, “take your hard work that you clearly marked with a GPL license and then make money from it”, you don’t even need to rely on fair use. As long as you comply with the terms of the GPL, making money with the code is perfectly acceptable, and the FSF even endorses the practice. [1] Red Hat is but one billion-dollar example.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllow...

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#364

Post by e12e » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #332

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…

Just for reference, the hackernews source is public.

Not the current version? AFAIK there's some security-by-obscurity in the measures against spam, voter rings etc ?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#365

Post by zelphirkalt » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #237

_Understated_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can wipe your ass with the GPL license if your use of the product falls within Fair Use. Is Copilot fair use? It's reading code, generating other code (some verbatim) and making money from it all while not having to release its source code to the world? > That doesn't mean that GitHub has to redistribute Copilot under GPL I wasn't saying that was the case: some of the code that Copilot used may not allow redist…

Making money is irrelevant to fair use

Irrelevant to GPL maybe.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#366

Post by jollybean » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

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…

Thanks for this, but can you answer the question:

Would it be 'fair use' for the devlopers to simply copy code from those repos - even just 10 lines, and claim 'fair use' - i.e. circumventing Copilot?

Even if Copilot is 'fair use' ... does that mean the results are 'fair use' on the part of AutoPilot users?

And a bigger question: is your interpretation of those statues and case law enough to make the answer unambiguous?

I don't have legal background, but I do have an operating background with lawyers and tech ... and my 'gut' says that anyone using Copilot is opening themselves up to lawsuits.

If the code you put in your software comes, via Copilot, but that code is verbatim from some kind of GPL's (or worse, proprietary) ... there's a good chance you could get sued if someone gets the inclination.

Maybe it's because of my personal experience, but I can just see corporate lawyers banning Copilot straight up as the risks are simply now worth the upside. That's now what we like to hear in the classically liberal sense i.e. 'share and innovate' ... but gosh it doesn't feel like a happy legal situation to me.

Looking forward to people with more insight sharing on this important topic.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#367

Post by zelphirkalt » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #300

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…

Assuming that copilot is a violation of copyright on GPL works, it would also be a violation of non-GPL copyrighted works, including public but, but fully copyrighted works. Therefor relicensing others source code under GPL would violate even more copyright.

So in that case, of course copilot would have to give license info for every. single. snippet. Case solved. Only, that they will probably not do that.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#368

Post by loeg » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

slownews45 wrote: post #349

mehdix wrote: post #170

GitHub's Copilot looks like a "code laundering" machine to me.

Developers have lost the plot here. The number of people browsing stack exchange and copying code is huge. The number of people who have read GPL'ed code to learn from (from the kernel to others) is huge. The number of people who learned from code they had to maintain -> huge. This idea that a snippet of a code is a work seems crazy to me. I thought we went through this with SCO already.

Stack exchange code is explicitly permissively licensed.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#369

Post by mupuff1234 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

habitue wrote: post #353

I am really confused by HN's response to copilot. It seems like before the twitter thread on it went viral, the only people who cared about programmers copying (verbatim!) short snippets of code like this would be lawyers and executives. Suddenly everyone is coming out of the woodworks as copyright maximalists? I know HN loves a good "well actually" and Microsoft is always suspect, but let's leave the idea of code la…

I think the real issue is less about the "copying short snippets", and more about how it was done, i.e zero transparency, default opt in without any regards to licensing (with no way to opt out??) and last but not least - planning to charge money for it.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#370

Post by shakna » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

AaronFriel wrote: post #361

shakna wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Supreme Court did hold that the 11,500 lines of API code copied verbatim constituted fair use. Yes, because it was _transformative_, in a clear way. Because an API is only an interface. Which makes that part of that decision largely irrelevant to the topic at hand. > Google’s limited copying of the API is a transformative use. Google copied only what was needed to allow programmers to work in a different compu-…

A $0 settlement means there is no binding precedent and signals to me that Oracle's attorneys felt they didn't have a strong argument and a potential for more. If they felt the nine line function made Google's entire library an unlicensed derivative work, they would have pressed their case.

> A $0 settlement means there is no binding precedent and signals to me that Oracle's attorneys felt they didn't have a strong argument and a potential for more.

That's not the case. It wasn't an out-of-court-settlement, but an agreement about the damages being sought, the court had already found it to be infringing, and that was part of the ruling.

But none of that changes that 9-lines is substantial enough to be infringing. It isn't necessary to be a large body of work.

> If they felt the nine line function made Google's entire library an unlicensed derivative work, they would have pressed their case.

No... It means the rangeCheck function was infringing. The implication you seem to have inferred here wouldn't be inferred by any kind of plagiarism case.