16 ms·

> ...the jurisprudence here – broadly relied upon by the machine learning community – is that training ML models is fair use. To be honest, I doubt that. Maybe

by SCLeo 5y ago

> ...the jurisprudence here – broadly relied upon by the machine learning community – is that training ML models is fair use. To be honest, I doubt that. Maybe I am special, but if I am releasing some code under GPL, I really don't want it to be used in training a closed source model, which will be used in a closed source software generating code for closed source projects.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Is it any different than training a human? What if a person learned programming by hacking on GPL public code and then went to build proprietary software?
- woodruffw 5y ago
  A human being who has learned from reading GPL'd code can make the informed, intelligent decision to not copy that code. My understanding of the open problem here is whether the ML model is intelligently recommending entire fragments that are explicitly licensed under the GPL. That would be a licensing violation, if a human did it.
  - 10000truths 5y ago
    > A human being who has learned from reading GPL'd code can make the informed, intelligent decision to not copy that code. A model can do this as well. Getting the length of a substring match isn’t rocket science.
  - akavel 5y ago
    Actually, I believe it's tricky to say if even human can actually do that safely. There's the whole concept of "cleanroom rewrite" - meaning, if you want to rewrite some GPL or closed-source project into a different license, you should make sure you never ever seen even a glimpse of the original code. If you look on GPL or closed-source code (or, actually, code governed by any other license), it's hard to prove you didn't accidentally/subconsciously remember parts of this code, and copy them into your "rewrite" project even if "you made a decision to not copy". The border between "inspired by" and "blatant copyright infringement" is blurry and messy. If that was already so tricky and troublesome legal-wise before, my first instinct is that with the Copilot it could be even more legally murky territory. IANAL, yet I'd feel better if they made some [legally binding] promises that their model is based only on code carefully verified to have one of an explicit (and published) whitelist of permissive licenses. (Even this could be tricky, with MIT etc. actually requiring some mention in your advertising materials [which is often forgotten], but now that's a completely different level of trouble than not knowing if I'm infringing GPL or some closed-source code, or other weird license.)
  - toastal 5y ago
    But wouldn't a machine learning AGPL code it be hosting AGPL code in its memory?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Pretty sure merely hosting code hoesn't trigger AGPL; if it did, github would have to be open-sourced.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  How do you distribute a human?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    A contractor seems equivalent to SaaS to me
- praptak 5y ago
  It is different in the same way that a person looking at me from their window when I pass by is different from a thousand cameras observing me when I move around city. Scale matters.
  - throwaway2037 5y ago
    This is a lovely analogy, akin to "sharing mix tapes" vs "sharing MP3s on Napster". I fear the coming world with extensive public camera surveilance and facial recognition! (For any other "tin foil hatters" out there, cue the trailer for Minority Report.)
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      >I fear the coming world with extensive public camera surveilance and facial recognition! I fear the coming world of training machine learning models with my face just because it was published by someone somewhere (legally or not).
      - heavyset_go 5y ago
        You can rest assured that this is already the case if your picture was ever posted online. There are dozens of such products that law enforcement buys subscriptions to.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    > a thousand cameras observing me when I move around city. Scale matters. reply While I certainly appreciate the difference, is camera observation illegal anywhere where it isn't explicitly outlawed? Meaning, have courts ever decided that the difference of scale matters?
    - praptak 5y ago
      No idea. I was not trying to make a legal argument. This was to try to convey why someone might feel ok about humans learning from their work but not necessarily about training a model.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  What if a person heard a song by hearing it on the radio and went on to record their own version?
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    There is already a legal structure in place for cover song licensing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_version#United_States_copyright_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_version#United_States_co...
    - twobitshifter 5y ago
      Exactly so it needs licensing of some sort - this is closer to cover tunes than it is to someone getting a CS degree and being asked to credit Knuth for all their future work.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Would you hire a person who only knew how to program by taking small snippets of code from GPL and rearranging them? That's like hiring monkey's to type Shakespeare. The clear difference is that a human's training regimen is to understand how and why code interacts. That is different from an engine that replicates other people's source code.
manquer 5y ago
Perhaps we need GPL v4. I don't think there is any clause in current V2/V3 that prohibits learning from the code, only using the code in other places and running a service with code.
colinbartlett 5y ago
Would you be okay with a human reading your GPL code and learning how to write closed source software for closed source projects?
zarzavat 5y ago
The whole point of fair use is that it allows people to copy things even when the copyright holder doesn't want them to. For example, if I am writing a criticism of an article, I can quote portions of that article in my criticism, or modify images from the article in order to add my own commentary. Fair use protects against authors who try to exert so much control over their works that it harms the public good.
- Tainnor 5y ago
  Fair Use is specific to the US, though. The picture could end up being much more complicated when code written outside the US is being analyzed.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    The messier issue is probably using the model to write code outside the US. Americans can probably analyze code from anywhere in the world and refer to Fair Use if a lawyer comes knocking, but I can't refer to Fair Use if a lawyer knocks on my door after using Copilot.
  - krzyk 5y ago
    It is not US specific, we have it in EU. And e.g. in Poland I could reverse engineer a program to make it work on my hardware/software if it doesn't. This is covered by fair use here.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  This isn't the same situation at all. The copying of code doesn't seem to be for a limited or transformative purpose. Fair use might cover parody or commentary & criticism but not limitless replication.
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    They are not replicating the code at all. They are training a neural network. The neural network then learns from the code and synthesises new code. It's no different from a human programmer reading code, learning from it, and using that experience to write new code. Somewhere in your head there is code that someone else wrote. And it's not infringing anybody's copyright for those memories to exist in your head.
slownews45 5y ago
This is what is so miserable about the GPL progression. We went from GPLv2 (preserving everyone's rights to use code) to GPLv3 (you have to give up your encryption keys) - I think we've lost the GPL as a place where we could solve / answer these types of questions which are good ones - GPL just tanked a lot of trust in it with the (A)GPLv3 stuff especially around prohibiting other developers from specific uses of the code (which is diametrically different from earlier versions which preserved rights).
- gspr 5y ago
  Think what you will of GPLv3, but lies help no one. Of course it doesn't require you to give up your encryption keys.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Under GPLv2 I could make a device with GPLv2 software and maintain root of trust control of that device if I wanted (ie, do an anti-theft activation lock process, do a lease ownership option of $200/month vs $10K to buy etc). Think what you will, but your lies about the GPLv3 can easily be tested. Can you point me to some GPLv3 software in the Apple tech stack? We actually already know the answer. Apple had to drop Samba (they were a MAJOR end user use of Samba) because of GPLv3 I think they also moved away from GCC for LLVM. In fact - they've probably purged at least 15 packages I'm aware of and I'm aware of NO GPLv3 packages being included. Not sure what their App Store story is - but I wouldn't be surprised if they were careful there too. Oh - this is all lies and apple's lawyers are wrong? Come one - I'm aware of many other companies that absolutely will not ship GPLv3 software for this reason. In fact, by 2011 even it was clear that GPLv3 is not really workable in a lot of contexts and alternatives like MIT became more popular. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0s9jg93,%2Fm%2F04vpm https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... Apple geared up to fight DOJ over maintaining root control of devices (San Bernadino case). Even Ubuntu has had to deal with this - SFLC made it clear that if some distributor messed things up ubuntu would have to release their keys, which is why they ended up with a MICROSOFT (!) solution. "Ubuntu wishes to ensure that users can boot any operating system they like and run any software they want. Their concern is that the GPLv3 makes provisions by which the FSF could, in this case as the owner of GRUB2, deem that a machine that won't let them replace GRUB2 with something else is in violation of the GPLv3. At that point, they can demand that Ubuntu surrender its encryption keys used to provide secure bootloader verification--which then allows anyone to sign any bootloader they want, thus negating any security features you could leverage out of the bootloader (for example, intentionally instructing it to boot only signed code--keeping the chain trusted, rather than booting a foreign OS as is the option)." - commentator on this topic. It's just interesting to me that rather than any substance the folks arguing for GPLv3 reach for name calling type responses.
rowanG077 5y ago
That's the point of fair use. To do something with a material the original author does not want.
- b3morales 5y ago
  Can you explain why you think this is covered by fair use? It seems to me to be 1a) commercial 1b) non-transformative: in order to be useful, the produced code must have the same semantics as some code in the training set, so this does not add "a different character or purpose". Note that this is very different from a "clean room" implementation, where a high-level design is reproduced, because the AI is looking directly at the original code! 2) possibly creative? 3) probably not literally reproducing input code 4) competitive/displacing for the code that was used in the input set So failing at least 3 out of 5 of the guidelines. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/index.html https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/index.html
  - rowanG077 5y ago
    1a) Fair use can be commercial. And copilot is not commercial so the point is moot. 1b) This is false. This is not literally taking snippets it has found and suggesting it to the user. That would be an intelligent search algorithm. This is writing novel code automatically based on what it has learned. 2) Definitely creative. It's creating novel code. At least it's creative if you consider a human programming to be a creative endeavor as well. 3) If it's reproducing input code it's just a search algorithm. This doesn't seem to be the case. 4) Most GPLed code doesn't cost any money. As such the market for it is non-existent. Besides copilot does not displace the original even if there were a market for it. As far as I know there is not anything even close to comparable in the world right now. So from my reading it violates none of the guidelines.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> To be honest, I doubt that. Okay, but that's...not much of a counterargument (to be fair, the original claim was unsupported, though.) > Maybe I am special, but if I am releasing some code under GPL, I really don't want it to be used in training a closed source model That's really not a counterargument. “Fair use” is an exception to exclusive rights under copyright, and renders the copyright holder’s preferences moot to the extent it applies. The copyright holder not being likely to want it based on the circumstances is an argument against it being implicitly licensed use, but not against it being fair use.
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
> a closed source model It seems like some of the chatter around this is implying that the resultant code might still have some GPL still on it. But it seems to me that it's the trained model that Microsoft should have to make available on request.

by SCLeo 5y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

Is it any different than training a human? What if a person learned programming by hacking on GPL public code and then went to build proprietary software?

woodruffw 5y ago
A human being who has learned from reading GPL'd code can make the informed, intelligent decision to not copy that code. My understanding of the open problem here is whether the ML model is intelligently recommending entire fragments that are explicitly licensed under the GPL. That would be a licensing violation, if a human did it.
- 10000truths 5y ago
  > A human being who has learned from reading GPL'd code can make the informed, intelligent decision to not copy that code. A model can do this as well. Getting the length of a substring match isn’t rocket science.
- akavel 5y ago
  Actually, I believe it's tricky to say if even human can actually do that safely. There's the whole concept of "cleanroom rewrite" - meaning, if you want to rewrite some GPL or closed-source project into a different license, you should make sure you never ever seen even a glimpse of the original code. If you look on GPL or closed-source code (or, actually, code governed by any other license), it's hard to prove you didn't accidentally/subconsciously remember parts of this code, and copy them into your "rewrite" project even if "you made a decision to not copy". The border between "inspired by" and "blatant copyright infringement" is blurry and messy. If that was already so tricky and troublesome legal-wise before, my first instinct is that with the Copilot it could be even more legally murky territory. IANAL, yet I'd feel better if they made some [legally binding] promises that their model is based only on code carefully verified to have one of an explicit (and published) whitelist of permissive licenses. (Even this could be tricky, with MIT etc. actually requiring some mention in your advertising materials [which is often forgotten], but now that's a completely different level of trouble than not knowing if I'm infringing GPL or some closed-source code, or other weird license.)
- toastal 5y ago
  But wouldn't a machine learning AGPL code it be hosting AGPL code in its memory?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Pretty sure merely hosting code hoesn't trigger AGPL; if it did, github would have to be open-sourced.
Hamuko 5y ago
How do you distribute a human?
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  A contractor seems equivalent to SaaS to me
praptak 5y ago
It is different in the same way that a person looking at me from their window when I pass by is different from a thousand cameras observing me when I move around city. Scale matters.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  This is a lovely analogy, akin to "sharing mix tapes" vs "sharing MP3s on Napster". I fear the coming world with extensive public camera surveilance and facial recognition! (For any other "tin foil hatters" out there, cue the trailer for Minority Report.)
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    >I fear the coming world with extensive public camera surveilance and facial recognition! I fear the coming world of training machine learning models with my face just because it was published by someone somewhere (legally or not).
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      You can rest assured that this is already the case if your picture was ever posted online. There are dozens of such products that law enforcement buys subscriptions to.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > a thousand cameras observing me when I move around city. Scale matters. reply While I certainly appreciate the difference, is camera observation illegal anywhere where it isn't explicitly outlawed? Meaning, have courts ever decided that the difference of scale matters?
  - praptak 5y ago
    No idea. I was not trying to make a legal argument. This was to try to convey why someone might feel ok about humans learning from their work but not necessarily about training a model.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
twobitshifter 5y ago
What if a person heard a song by hearing it on the radio and went on to record their own version?
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  There is already a legal structure in place for cover song licensing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_version#United_States_copyright_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_version#United_States_co...
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    Exactly so it needs licensing of some sort - this is closer to cover tunes than it is to someone getting a CS degree and being asked to credit Knuth for all their future work.
IncRnd 5y ago
Would you hire a person who only knew how to program by taking small snippets of code from GPL and rearranging them? That's like hiring monkey's to type Shakespeare. The clear difference is that a human's training regimen is to understand how and why code interacts. That is different from an engine that replicates other people's source code.

manquer 5y ago

Perhaps we need GPL v4. I don't think there is any clause in current V2/V3 that prohibits learning from the code, only using the code in other places and running a service with code.

colinbartlett 5y ago

Would you be okay with a human reading your GPL code and learning how to write closed source software for closed source projects?

zarzavat 5y ago

The whole point of fair use is that it allows people to copy things even when the copyright holder doesn't want them to. For example, if I am writing a criticism of an article, I can quote portions of that article in my criticism, or modify images from the article in order to add my own commentary. Fair use protects against authors who try to exert so much control over their works that it harms the public good.

Tainnor 5y ago
Fair Use is specific to the US, though. The picture could end up being much more complicated when code written outside the US is being analyzed.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  The messier issue is probably using the model to write code outside the US. Americans can probably analyze code from anywhere in the world and refer to Fair Use if a lawyer comes knocking, but I can't refer to Fair Use if a lawyer knocks on my door after using Copilot.
- krzyk 5y ago
  It is not US specific, we have it in EU. And e.g. in Poland I could reverse engineer a program to make it work on my hardware/software if it doesn't. This is covered by fair use here.
IncRnd 5y ago
This isn't the same situation at all. The copying of code doesn't seem to be for a limited or transformative purpose. Fair use might cover parody or commentary & criticism but not limitless replication.
- zarzavat 5y ago
  They are not replicating the code at all. They are training a neural network. The neural network then learns from the code and synthesises new code. It's no different from a human programmer reading code, learning from it, and using that experience to write new code. Somewhere in your head there is code that someone else wrote. And it's not infringing anybody's copyright for those memories to exist in your head.

slownews45 5y ago

This is what is so miserable about the GPL progression. We went from GPLv2 (preserving everyone's rights to use code) to GPLv3 (you have to give up your encryption keys) - I think we've lost the GPL as a place where we could solve / answer these types of questions which are good ones - GPL just tanked a lot of trust in it with the (A)GPLv3 stuff especially around prohibiting other developers from specific uses of the code (which is diametrically different from earlier versions which preserved rights).

gspr 5y ago
Think what you will of GPLv3, but lies help no one. Of course it doesn't require you to give up your encryption keys.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Under GPLv2 I could make a device with GPLv2 software and maintain root of trust control of that device if I wanted (ie, do an anti-theft activation lock process, do a lease ownership option of $200/month vs $10K to buy etc). Think what you will, but your lies about the GPLv3 can easily be tested. Can you point me to some GPLv3 software in the Apple tech stack? We actually already know the answer. Apple had to drop Samba (they were a MAJOR end user use of Samba) because of GPLv3 I think they also moved away from GCC for LLVM. In fact - they've probably purged at least 15 packages I'm aware of and I'm aware of NO GPLv3 packages being included. Not sure what their App Store story is - but I wouldn't be surprised if they were careful there too. Oh - this is all lies and apple's lawyers are wrong? Come one - I'm aware of many other companies that absolutely will not ship GPLv3 software for this reason. In fact, by 2011 even it was clear that GPLv3 is not really workable in a lot of contexts and alternatives like MIT became more popular. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0s9jg93,%2Fm%2F04vpm https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... Apple geared up to fight DOJ over maintaining root control of devices (San Bernadino case). Even Ubuntu has had to deal with this - SFLC made it clear that if some distributor messed things up ubuntu would have to release their keys, which is why they ended up with a MICROSOFT (!) solution. "Ubuntu wishes to ensure that users can boot any operating system they like and run any software they want. Their concern is that the GPLv3 makes provisions by which the FSF could, in this case as the owner of GRUB2, deem that a machine that won't let them replace GRUB2 with something else is in violation of the GPLv3. At that point, they can demand that Ubuntu surrender its encryption keys used to provide secure bootloader verification--which then allows anyone to sign any bootloader they want, thus negating any security features you could leverage out of the bootloader (for example, intentionally instructing it to boot only signed code--keeping the chain trusted, rather than booting a foreign OS as is the option)." - commentator on this topic. It's just interesting to me that rather than any substance the folks arguing for GPLv3 reach for name calling type responses.

rowanG077 5y ago

That's the point of fair use. To do something with a material the original author does not want.

b3morales 5y ago
Can you explain why you think this is covered by fair use? It seems to me to be 1a) commercial 1b) non-transformative: in order to be useful, the produced code must have the same semantics as some code in the training set, so this does not add "a different character or purpose". Note that this is very different from a "clean room" implementation, where a high-level design is reproduced, because the AI is looking directly at the original code! 2) possibly creative? 3) probably not literally reproducing input code 4) competitive/displacing for the code that was used in the input set So failing at least 3 out of 5 of the guidelines. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/index.html https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/index.html
- rowanG077 5y ago
  1a) Fair use can be commercial. And copilot is not commercial so the point is moot. 1b) This is false. This is not literally taking snippets it has found and suggesting it to the user. That would be an intelligent search algorithm. This is writing novel code automatically based on what it has learned. 2) Definitely creative. It's creating novel code. At least it's creative if you consider a human programming to be a creative endeavor as well. 3) If it's reproducing input code it's just a search algorithm. This doesn't seem to be the case. 4) Most GPLed code doesn't cost any money. As such the market for it is non-existent. Besides copilot does not displace the original even if there were a market for it. As far as I know there is not anything even close to comparable in the world right now. So from my reading it violates none of the guidelines.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> To be honest, I doubt that. Okay, but that's...not much of a counterargument (to be fair, the original claim was unsupported, though.) > Maybe I am special, but if I am releasing some code under GPL, I really don't want it to be used in training a closed source model That's really not a counterargument. “Fair use” is an exception to exclusive rights under copyright, and renders the copyright holder’s preferences moot to the extent it applies. The copyright holder not being likely to want it based on the circumstances is an argument against it being implicitly licensed use, but not against it being fair use.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago

> a closed source model It seems like some of the chatter around this is implying that the resultant code might still have some GPL still on it. But it seems to me that it's the trained model that Microsoft should have to make available on request.