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Copilot sells code other people wrote

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Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#551

Post by xtracto »

concordDance wrote: post #529
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #364

It is now proven that copilot returns code from codebases with non-permissive licenses [1]. I'm curious - what are the legal implications of this going forward? I've so many questions. 1. Will Microsoft ever face lawsuits for these license violations? 2. If so, who/how? Class-action? 3. Will copilot be forced to open-source in the future? Under which license? Some open source licenses are incompatible with others, bu…

There's also one more question: 5. Even if it is illegal, is it actually bad? No one can possibly sell code snippets, the transaction costs are many orders of magnitude greater than any reasonable price. In my opinion, at least in this case the benefits massively outweigh the costs and the law should not apply here.

I really, REALLY like the idea of Copilot. I think it is a glance at what the future of AI can bring to improve programming. I understand where all the litigation and "uneasiness" is coming from, both from commercial and open-source projects.

I've not installed or used it for the same reason (don't want to use AGPL or GPLd code by accident, and don't want my closed source code to be used accidentally as well), but the thought of Copilot being "killed" due to litigation/copyright/licensing issues is sad.

For me, It's kind of like when MP3 first appeared: Sharing music in Napster or downloading Mp3s from Geocities was just amazing. The idea of having such things at your fingertips. Even though I understood the issue the authors had with the unpaid distribution of their music... still, the idea of "what could be..." made it amazing.

I guess Microsoft could be a bit forward thinking, and implement the "Spotify" model in code: Pay OpenSource developers (whoever owns the repo, or whoever made a commit?) a small amount whenever their code gets used through Copilot.

I'm super excited by how "Copilot" related services will look like in 10 years. And I really really hope that the technology/idea doesn't get killed by litigation.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#552

Post by okasaki »

jaywalk wrote: post #550
nickjj wrote: post #535

This might be overreacting but is there a way to opt-out of Copilot using your code in open source repos? It feels morally wrong to me that I can spend thousands of hours working on projects on my own free will but then a company can sell the code I wrote to others in the form of snippet completion as a service. In fact they end up selling your code back to yourself if you plan to use the service. If the answer is no…

If your code is using a license that allows it, how could you possibly opt-out aside from using a different license?

Microsoft could provide an opt-out for projects or even contributors, regardless of licence.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#553

Post by nickjj »

jaywalk wrote: post #550
nickjj wrote: post #535

This might be overreacting but is there a way to opt-out of Copilot using your code in open source repos? It feels morally wrong to me that I can spend thousands of hours working on projects on my own free will but then a company can sell the code I wrote to others in the form of snippet completion as a service. In fact they end up selling your code back to yourself if you plan to use the service. If the answer is no…

If your code is using a license that allows it, how could you possibly opt-out aside from using a different license?

> If your code is using a license that allows it, how could you possibly opt-out aside from using a different license?

A repo setting that instructs Github not to use your code for Copilot, it could be a similar option as turning Discussions on / off.

If they really want to win developers over they would even have Copilot scanning disabled by default but that'll never happen.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#554

Post by BaculumMeumEst »

minhazm wrote: post #530
vorpalhex wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's hard for Github to determine that in general, so I doubt they would be liable for the error. Please insert that meme, "That's not how that works. That's not how any of this works!" The legal system is permission based, not forgiveness or "I didn't know" based.

Actually the legal system is evidence based. Microsoft has evidence that the code they are producing is licensed under MIT as far as they can reasonably know. There's no definitive way to know that who actually owns the original copyright. I could grant permission to use my repo, but maybe I got that code from someone else, who then got it from someone else and so on and so forth. It's a similar situation with stolen…

Exactly, that's why Pornhub hasn't had any liability issues arising from where its content comes from either. It's just too darned hard to tell.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#555

Post by frazbin »

xtracto wrote: post #551
concordDance wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also one more question: 5. Even if it is illegal, is it actually bad? No one can possibly sell code snippets, the transaction costs are many orders of magnitude greater than any reasonable price. In my opinion, at least in this case the benefits massively outweigh the costs and the law should not apply here.

I really, REALLY like the idea of Copilot. I think it is a glance at what the future of AI can bring to improve programming. I understand where all the litigation and "uneasiness" is coming from, both from commercial and open-source projects. I've not installed or used it for the same reason (don't want to use AGPL or GPLd code by accident, and don't want my closed source code to be used accidentally as well), but th…

Huh... These comments have given me an idea: MS needs to be forced to train a model to compensate (pay) code authors and codebases based on snippet suggestions given by their tool: the Spotify model replacing Napster!

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#556

Post by megous »

redox99 wrote: post #470
megous wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, takedown requests exists. Say Qualcomm finally wises up and asks github to takedown a copy of the millions lines of their super proprietary 4G modem firmware implementation from github. Will github retrain the model after each such takedown? :D If not, then it's kinda stupid to argue the point about the lack of knowledge, since lack or not lack of knowledge clearly doesn't matter. Github will happily continue usi…

I guess they would add some kind of filter to copilot output that removes results that clearly come from code that was DMCAd. It's kind of like some employee that worked at Qualcomm and has seen the code. Do you retrain him (aka hit his head until he forgets) after leaving the company? The comparison might seem silly but as AI advances I expect more and more arguments (especially in court) to come from analogies of h…

What kind of filter? I thought copilot does not output the input data verbatim.

Creating an output filter based on millions lines of DMCAd code that would not cripple the copilot output completely at the same time, sounds like one of those hard problems. Especially if there's no agreed upon definition of copyright "violation" here.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#557

Post by worker_person »

bastardoperator wrote: post #549
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #364

It is now proven that copilot returns code from codebases with non-permissive licenses [1]. I'm curious - what are the legal implications of this going forward? I've so many questions. 1. Will Microsoft ever face lawsuits for these license violations? 2. If so, who/how? Class-action? 3. Will copilot be forced to open-source in the future? Under which license? Some open source licenses are incompatible with others, bu…

You don't think a mountain of MSFT lawyers in every state, including partner law firms around the world haven't thought about this? Do you practice law or are you speculating based on emotions?

MSFT tried very hard to sue Linux into oblivion. Buying SCO, then claiming they owned all of Linux. http://www.groklaw.net/

I trust MSFT to screw everyone over.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#558

Post by jonny_eh »

nickjj wrote: post #553
jaywalk wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your code is using a license that allows it, how could you possibly opt-out aside from using a different license?

> If your code is using a license that allows it, how could you possibly opt-out aside from using a different license? A repo setting that instructs Github not to use your code for Copilot, it could be a similar option as turning Discussions on / off. If they really want to win developers over they would even have Copilot scanning disabled by default but that'll never happen.

Sounds like you want a new license that just prohibits use by one company for one purpose.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#559

Post by BaculumMeumEst »

542458 wrote: post #460
aposm wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine a scenario in which any lawyer would consider granting Github the right to "analyze" code anywhere close to granting Github the right to spit out that same code verbatim without your copyright notice (even if laundered by AI).

Here's Kate Downing, an IP lawyer specializing in software license: > According to Downing, the answer depends to a certain extent on where that code is hosted. If it’s on GitHub, there very clearly would not be copyright infringement. > “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,”…

> “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.”

That's assuming that all code on GitHub is uploaded in good faith by the copyright owner, which is not always going to be the case.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#560

Post by PaulKeeble »

xtracto wrote: post #551
concordDance wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also one more question: 5. Even if it is illegal, is it actually bad? No one can possibly sell code snippets, the transaction costs are many orders of magnitude greater than any reasonable price. In my opinion, at least in this case the benefits massively outweigh the costs and the law should not apply here.

I really, REALLY like the idea of Copilot. I think it is a glance at what the future of AI can bring to improve programming. I understand where all the litigation and "uneasiness" is coming from, both from commercial and open-source projects. I've not installed or used it for the same reason (don't want to use AGPL or GPLd code by accident, and don't want my closed source code to be used accidentally as well), but th…

Microsoft could have trained this on their own code and there would be no issue. The problem is instead of doing that they knew full well the approach would reproduce the code and they decided they would rather breach GPL than expose their own code. But I bet Microsoft has more than enough lines to train an AI, there was a clear choice to breach other peoples licenses in preference.
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