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Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

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Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#51

Post by lindenksv85 »

kuratkull wrote: post #42
pc86 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Bob is unable to give GitHub the rights that GitHub demands, then it means Bob was unable to lawfully upload the code to GitHub in the first place. You're making an argument that Bob violated GitHub's terms, not that GitHub is violating Alice's (though that may also be true).

Violating the TOS is not illegal, Bob would be in breach and GitHub could take measures against Bob's account. Github would be violating Alice's copyright license though, that is legally enforceable

Sort of. DMCA protects service providers against copyright infringement claims related to stuff uploaded to their services by third parties. So long as they adhere to DMCA requests, they’re not violating copyright law themselves.

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#52

Post by Rolpa »

Here's an inquiry for those more knowledgeable about IP law than myself: what's the state of the law regarding training an AI on copyrighted material besides code? I was debating this with someone in relation to the high definition texture packs for old games people have been making using models such as ESRGAN - do these infringe the copyright of the rights holders of the original assets? Or are they considered sufficiently transformative to be considered an original work?

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#53

Post by dheera »

tyingq wrote: post #18
lindenksv85 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They technically don’t distribute any code. They show it to you in a hosted environment. It’s the user that causes a distribution. They “provide it as part of the service.”

I'm not sure how sending it over the wire to Visual Studio doesn't count as distribution. Distribution without attribution, reference to where it came from, how it's licensed, etc.

Conceptually it's not particularly any different from distributing it to your web browser. They basically just turned Visual Studio into a fancy Github browser that has some editing features.

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#54

Post by invokestatic »

pedrocr wrote: post #31

Given this fair use argument that the work is probably transformative enough here's what I'll be doing next. I'll take the Windows and Office source code, run it through a decompiler and then train a neural network on that output. This sequence of steps should be at least as transformative of Microsoft's copyright as what Copilot is doing with the open-source corpus, probably much more so. I will then use that neural…

I've heard something similar in response to Copilot in another thread (something like offering a sum of money to Github if they train their model exclusively on the Windows NT source code). But I think the legal theory here is that Copilot is trained on many thousands of sources. If Copilot was trained on a single source, or even a small handful of sources, the derivative work claim becomes much stronger. When trained on many sources, it becomes much harder to claim that its a derivative of another work.

Take for example a human. If I studied a bunch of different open-source projects, learned techniques from them, and implemented them in my own projects, is that a derivative work? Probably not. But if I were to reverse engineer Windows and implement the techniques I saw in ReactOS, that's where it seems issues start to arise.

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#55

Post by lindenksv85 »

grawprog wrote: post #21
tyingq wrote: post #3

“If you look at the GitHub Terms of Service, no matter what license you use, you give GitHub the right to host your code and to use your code to improve their products and features,” Downing says. “So with respect to code that’s already on GitHub, I think the answer to the question of copyright infringement is fairly straightforward.” I don't know if it's really that straightforward. The TOS includes snippets like th…

> to use your code to improve their products and features >It also does not grant GitHub the right to otherwise distribute or use Your Content I'm curious. Copilot isn't actually part of github. It's a plugin for Visual Studio wouldn't that mean copilot is distributing code hosted on github, outside of github? You can't use copilot without visual studio. How is this not Microsoft just parasitizing all the code hosted…

The “services” is that which is provided by GitHub. “GitHub” is defined to include all of its affiliates, including Microsoft.

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#56

Post by gnopgnip »

wolverine876 wrote: post #13
dekhn wrote: post #2

These agree with my conclusions- it's fair use or permitted by license, but that it remains untested (as the GPL does in a larger sense) by law. I guess in about 5 years we'll see Softbank v. GitHub CoPilot in the supreme court deciding whether ML can make transformative work.

Why do we accept that the courts are so slow? I don't understand why there isn't a drive to reform courts by accelerating outcomes by an order of magnitude, and by making outcomes not depend on wealth.

The courts being slow to change, respecting precedent is a feature. It should be on congress to change the law and ammend the copyright act

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#57

Post by lindenksv85 »

ipaddr wrote: post #35
pc86 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Bob is unable to give GitHub the rights that GitHub demands, then it means Bob was unable to lawfully upload the code to GitHub in the first place. You're making an argument that Bob violated GitHub's terms, not that GitHub is violating Alice's (though that may also be true).

That's moving the goalposts after the fact. What about all of the code that existed before Microsoft purchased them and before new licease language was introduced?

All of these terms of service have an assignment provision that allows the provider to assign the agreement to an acquirer. So the license you gave to GitHub moves to Microsoft (though here the license likely remains with GitHub because they are an independent subsidiary). All of these agreements also say they can unilaterally change terms whenever. The terms are generally always broad enough to cover these circumstances.

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#59

Post by pedrocr »

invokestatic wrote: post #54
pedrocr wrote: post #31

Given this fair use argument that the work is probably transformative enough here's what I'll be doing next. I'll take the Windows and Office source code, run it through a decompiler and then train a neural network on that output. This sequence of steps should be at least as transformative of Microsoft's copyright as what Copilot is doing with the open-source corpus, probably much more so. I will then use that neural…

I've heard something similar in response to Copilot in another thread (something like offering a sum of money to Github if they train their model exclusively on the Windows NT source code). But I think the legal theory here is that Copilot is trained on many thousands of sources. If Copilot was trained on a single source, or even a small handful of sources, the derivative work claim becomes much stronger. When traine…

So I just need to decompile Oracle's database and a few other commercial products as well and I'm good? Is Microsoft legal happy if I do Windows+Office+OpenSourceCorpus? I'd take that statement as well. Or even if they just do that themselves and train Copilot on their internal source code just as they do with the public open-source corpus. That would be a strong statement as well.

Re: Analyzing the legal implications of GitHub Copilot

#60

Post by inlined »

dheera wrote: post #53
tyingq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how sending it over the wire to Visual Studio doesn't count as distribution. Distribution without attribution, reference to where it came from, how it's licensed, etc.

Conceptually it's not particularly any different from distributing it to your web browser. They basically just turned Visual Studio into a fancy Github browser that has some editing features.

I disagree. They’re the API host, so they’re the distributor as well as the user agent
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