Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Copilot sells code other people wrote

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

661–670 of 838 posts

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#661

Post by sirsinsalot »

marpstar wrote: post #597
Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

> Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps This is my feeling as well. I don't build stuff in the open so that I can get bent out of shape at someone not properly licensing it. It's in a public repository, FFS... I assume that if anyone even notices my repo, that they may copy/paste a few lines out of my solution if it helps them.

But this isn't everyone's feeling. And they have a right to choose how their work is used. Thats the basis of commerce being possible here.

The mechanised license ignorance and the way original authors are not compensated is the issue.

If you had a repo you'd worked really hard on, and offered a commercial license or GPL depending on the use (so you can be funded to work on it) ... do you think it is fair that copilot ingests that code and allows others to benefit from your work and knowledge without the commercial license as you intended?

Note how Microsoft always throws out the capitalism "rules of engagement" when it benefits them and undermines everything else. The fact we are even trusting the situation Microsoft are creating is dire, and speaks to the short memory of our industry.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#662

Post by vajow46267 »

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

So glad this sentiment is becoming more common in the OSS community! I MIT license everything, if someone wants to make money using stuff I wrote that's awesome, and I wish them the best.

I don't think users owe me anything at all. If people want to PR back that's cool but if not that's cool too.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#664

Post by georgeecollins »

cududa wrote: post #608
marpstar wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps This is my feeling as well. I don't build stuff in the open so that I can get bent out of shape at someone not properly licensing it. It's in a public repository, FFS... I assume that if anyone even notices my repo, that they may copy/paste a few lines out of my solution if it helps them.

Exactly! Do they really think every single line of their code is so precious it requires attribution? If I publish code, I assume it might get pushed, pulled, refactored in a million ways and no one will ever know my name’s attached to it. And guess what? I DONT’T CARE. It’s code. Not a self-constructed monument to my own intelligence that needs a little placard with my name on it to follow around some clever async f…

If its a couple lines of generic code, of course. That's also an indefensible copyright, btw. But if its hundreds of very specific likes of code written to do one thing under a license you don't follow, that's something else.

This isn't just an issue of code. You can write a program that combines songs, or combines novels creating a different work that has sections that are essentially the original protected work. I don't think the authors of those novels are going to be OK with you selling or giving away a version of their work just because an AI edited it or combined it somehow.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#665

Post by sirsinsalot »

monocasa wrote: post #564
mhaymo wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That regurgitated code exists on Github exists under an MIT license: https://github.com/jethrodaniel/fast_inv_sqrt "jethrodaniel" does not appear to have the copyright to offer that license, but it's hard for Github to determine that in general, so I doubt they would be liable for the error.

Even if it's somehow available under an MIT license (which is questionable on the part of jethrodaniel), there's still infringement. MIT isn't public domain, it still has > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Replicating it without complying with those terms is still infringement.

this. People are being willfully blind here, like cult members looking dead-eyed at their leader and chanting "This is great" as they drink the kool-aid.

And from Microsoft no less, once outcast for mass poisoning.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#666

Post by andybak »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #658
andybak wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I really don't mind. I want every line of code I've ever written to be used as much as possible. I find "intellectual property" to be dubious to the core. I'm not confident enough in my feelings to be a zealot, but if I had to pick sides then I know which side I would pick.

If an AI "listened" to music and created new samples for musicians to use for a fee, do you not think the original musicians should be compensated? The value transfer is basically theft. It isn't about the usefulness of the service, or even that something similar is a good thing ... it is about the execution and what it says about fairness for those that worked to create the data it depends on to produce value.

I'm not sure I was clear enough when I expressed my doubts about the concept of intellectual property.

Your musical example is playing out in the courts in multiple forms. The Marvin Gaye case, Led Zeppelin, Katie Perry etc.

And each case pushes me further towards wanting to rip down the whole rotten edifice.

We've lived through 4 or 5 decades of unprecedented expansion of the domain to which IP lays claim. Surely it's time for the pendulum to swing the other way?

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#667

Post by kube-system »

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

> Free Software

> public domain

These are incompatible concepts. RMS's vision of 'free-as-in-freedom' software doesn't let people do whatever they want. It forces those who distribute binaries to also distribute source. This is not possible with a public domain work.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#668

Post by meshaneian »

davesque wrote: post #593
PaulKeeble wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be automatic based on license. GPL code definitely shouldn't be included but MIT could be. They already have this information in most repositories and if its missing they have no right to use it at all. We don't need extra options the licenses already restrict the use and derivative work.

Not without the text of the license. I, as a developer, cannot just poach open source code under MIT without including the copyright and terms from the original project. From the license: "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

They might argue that a snippet isn't a "substantial portion" of "the Software", and they're only charging for the service not the content - regardless, I don't like it, this is exactly what certain licenses attempt to prevent.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#669

Post by typetheorist »

davesque wrote: post #593
PaulKeeble wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be automatic based on license. GPL code definitely shouldn't be included but MIT could be. They already have this information in most repositories and if its missing they have no right to use it at all. We don't need extra options the licenses already restrict the use and derivative work.

Not without the text of the license. I, as a developer, cannot just poach open source code under MIT without including the copyright and terms from the original project. From the license: "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

I too have reservations about Copilot, but does the MIT license define a "substantial portion"? I doubt a snippet would fall under either "copies" or "substantial portions"

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#670

Post by andybak »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #645
andybak wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I really don't mind. I want every line of code I've ever written to be used as much as possible. I find "intellectual property" to be dubious to the core. I'm not confident enough in my feelings to be a zealot, but if I had to pick sides then I know which side I would pick.

You're welcome to use a "do whatever you want" license on your code, and people should respect that. (Though even those licenses tend to require attribution, and copilot doesn't do even that.) Other people use licenses that try to create a commons where if you want to use it you need to share your own code, as a counterpoint to the non-commons in which you can't use code at all. And if people use those licenses, they…

A fair point. "What to do in a world where copyright already exists" is a tougher question to answer and one in which I tend to go back and forth.
Post reply on HN