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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

#621

Post by solomatov »

joe_the_user wrote: post #612
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #469

I am sorry for not bringing any kind of legal perspective here, but: *Jesus Christ*, I hope I live long enough to see copyright die. Here we are at the cusp of a new paradigm of commanding computers to do stuff for us, right at the beginning of the first AI development which actually impresses me. And we are fucking bickering about how we were cheated out of $0.00034 because our repo from 2015 might have been used fo…

1) This "copilot is great 'cause copyright is evil" argument breaks when you look at the fact that copilot is copyrighted, closed software tool for producing closed, copyrighted software. If you trained copilot on GPL'd software and specified that copilot's output was also GPL'd maybe you'd have some reasonable claim (but even then, the attribution claim would come in). 2) So far, these tools are "better search" sche…

>2) So far, these tools are "better search" schemes, not actual intelligence. Sure, many find them very useful. But given this, the (voluntary or involuntary) providers of data ought to get credit/benefit for/from this phenomena, along with the tool creators. Especially giving the current situation is Microsoft/OpenAI selling to commercial software developers who sell to general public.

What they are good at is predicting what's after the text. The problem of predicting what's next could be used to create a universal artificial intelligence (there's a mathematical definition for this). I.e. if you have a system which is very good at predicting what's next, you could get to very powerful AI.

If you are interested, you could read about it here: http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#622

Post by shagie »

bloppe wrote: post #585
zhfliz wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anyone can upload someone else's code to GitHub, not just people who can grant such permission.

The end user agreement also says you must have the authority to grant these epic rights to GitHub, i.e. you cannot upload someone else's code. They could probably absolve themselves from responsibility due to your having committed wire fraud in this case. But, alas, IANAL.

If I have access to the source of a BSD, MIT, or GPL project - is there anything in those licenses that would prevent me from mirroring it on GitHub or GitLab?

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#623

Post by mezbot »

This issue seems to have an obvious solution that I fail to see anyone mention: Treat copilot simply as a tool, let it be trained on whatever without any consent requirements. However the outputs should be subject to copyright as with any other code produced by a human. Then on a case by case basis courts can decide if infringement has occurred. The idea of banning copilot or other AI models as a whole just seems like a collective case of sour grapes because innovation and automation is finally threatening some people who only expected these things to affect the working class

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#624

Post by D13Fd »

chlorion wrote: post #601
D13Fd wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thank you. This is exactly right. The entire response to this suit on this site is mind-blowing to me. Everyone is up in arms that someone trained an AI model that could potentially spit out tiny, twisted fragments of public, open-source code. This response is nothing but selfish behavior that runs counter to the core principles of open source development and the free software movement.

It's selfish to want people to abide by the license I released my project under? That's pure nonsense.

Your code is protected by copyright. The license allows for what would otherwise be copyright infringement.

But training an AI model on media (code or otherwise) is not copyright infringement, so the license is irrelevant.

It's selfish to pretend otherwise and to try to assert a copyright right that doesn't exist, for the purpose of impeding progress in a field that benefits us all.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#625

Post by theamk »

D13Fd wrote: post #517
kelnos wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with Copilot, but I think all rightsholders should be allowed to decide if they want their code training it or not. And that should be opt-in, not opt-out. (And refusing to opt in shouldn't have to mean switching to a new hosting platform.) > Beyond that, the class members aren't likely to get much if any money. The only party here who stands to clearly benefit is the attorneys. That's the case in pretty muc…

>I look at class actions as having two purposes . . . to require that the defendant stops doing something That's my point. Many of the class members don't want the company to stop doing this. I have code on GitHub, and Copilot is a useful tool. I don't care if my code was used to train the model. Sure, I personally could opt out of the suit, but that would be utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The bot…

If lawsuit goes through, it's not likely that Copilot would disappear.. but there would be a checkbox to opt-in your code. You could check it and your code will be used to train model.

I have some code on Github as well and would not want it to be used in training, nor by Microsoft nor by other company. It is under GPL license to ensure that any derived use is public and not stripped of copyrights and locked into proprietary codebase, and copilot is pretty much 100% opposite of this.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#626

Post by D13Fd »

mbreese wrote: post #606
D13Fd wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct legally, morally, or both? Legally a copyright claim seems weak, but they didn't assert one. Some of their claims look stronger than others. The DMCA claim in particular strikes me as strong-ish at first glance, though. Morally I think this class action is dead wrong. This is how innovation dies. Many of the class members likely do not want to kill Copilot and every future service that operates similarly. Bey…

> Morally I think this class action is dead wrong. This is how innovation dies. This legal challenge is coming one way or another. I think it’s better to get it out of the way early. At least then we will know the rules going forward, as opposed to being in some quasi-legal gray area for years.

I disagree. The more entrenched a practice is, like training AI models on media content, the less willing a court is going to be to take that practice away.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#627

Post by klabb3 »

nickelpro wrote: post #454
klabb3 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. This is kinda smug, because it overcomplicates things for no reason, and only serves as a faux technocentric strawman. It just muddies the waters for a sane discussion of the topic, which people can participate in without a CS degree. The AI models of today are very simple to explain: its a product built from…

It's not something to dismiss but it is something that has already been addressed. Authors Guild v Google. Google Books is built upon scanning millions of books from libraries without first gaining permission from copyright holders, this was found to not be a violation of copyright. Building a product on top of copyright works that does not directly distribute those works is legal. More specifically, a computer consu…

> Authors Guild v Google. Google Books is built upon scanning millions of books from libraries

I agree it's relevant precedent, but not exactly the same. Libraries are a public good and more importantly Google books references the original works. In short, I don't think that's the final word in all seemingly related cases.

> More specifically, a computer consuming a copyright work is not a violation of copyright.

I don't agree with this way of describing technology, as if humans weren't responsible for operating and designing the technology. Law is concerned with humans and their actions. If you create an autonomous scraper that takes copyrighted works and distributes them, you are (morally) responsible for the act of distributing them, even if you didn't "handle" them or even see them yourself.

Neither of the important aspects – remixing and automation – is novel, but the combination is. That's what we should focus on, instead of treating AI as some separate anthropomorphized entity.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#628

Post by codebje »

heavyset_go wrote: post #515
D13Fd wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct legally, morally, or both? Legally a copyright claim seems weak, but they didn't assert one. Some of their claims look stronger than others. The DMCA claim in particular strikes me as strong-ish at first glance, though. Morally I think this class action is dead wrong. This is how innovation dies. Many of the class members likely do not want to kill Copilot and every future service that operates similarly. Bey…

Innovation dies when creators can't create without someone ripping off their work against the terms they release it under. I am more hesitant to release code on GitHub under any licenses now. Even outside of GPL-esque terms, I've considered open sourcing some of my product's components under a source available but otherwise proprietary license, but if Microsoft won't adhere to popular licenses like the GPL, why would…

I find your comment a bit perplexing, perhaps you can help me understand.

Why do you want to release code on GitHub with an oppressive license? What's the motivation for you, and what's the benefit for anyone else in it being released?

The size of code fragments being generated with these AI tools is, as far as I can tell, extremely small. Do you think you could even notice if your own implementation of sqrt, comments and all, wound up in Excel?

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#629

Post by lbotos »

lbotos wrote: post #547
renewiltord wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, `curl` will download a gist without checking its license. So curl is infringing?

The law will consider "intent". By your logic, web browsers are infringing. Can you use curl to infringe on copyright? Yes. Is every time you use curl copyright infringement? No. Can you in theory tell when you are infringing with curl? Yes. Can you use copilot to infringe? Yes. Is every time you use copilot copyright infringement? No. Can you in theory tell when you are infringing with copilot? *No*

my response above about intent is wrong, but the rest still holds imo.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#630

Post by freejazz »

williamcotton wrote: post #541
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many public examples of that same effect happening (for example https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 ), and the legal team has been soliciting for more examples. Those examples are likely to come out if it does go to trial.

If this legal team was interested in this going to trial you think they would have put together a stronger case instead of risking that it won’t be heard. There’s not even a single mention of any established legal doctrines around copyright and software, such as abstract-filter-compare, idea-expression dichotomy, etc.

It's a complaint, not a brief.
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