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It is not a derivative work if what they say about copilot is true. This is the same as a human learning to code from gpl libraries and then generating code fro

It is not a derivative work if what they say about copilot is true. This is the same as a human learning to code from gpl libraries and then generating code from memory. Obviously it is less likely to be the same and is definitively not derivative.

gravypod 5y ago
While I disagree with this sentiment, if we take this as true and consider it "the same as a human learning to code from gpl libraries" this opens up an entirely different can of worms when it comes to patent assignment.
dTal 5y ago
A human won't "accidentally" retype the source code to Quake, including comments, changing only the license - so no, it isn't like that.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  If GitHub survives in court over this, I guarantee you someone will :3
soonerroadie 5y ago
If you read something that is copyrighted and rewrite it from memory, that’s still copying for purposes of the copyright act. There are cases about music where that’s unintentionally happened and the inadvertent copier was held liable. It’s basically what the machine learning is doing. Committing something to memory is no defense to copyright - I would recon a good number of people could recite any number of copyrighted works from memory (e.g., episodes of The Office, Seinfeld, or popular songs). If a person wrote that down and tried to sell it, I’m convinced a court would hold that person liable. There is a defense of “independent creation,” but basically if you saw/heard the copyrighted work before then it’s very hard to use that as a defense.
marcodiego 5y ago
If copilot produces a verbatim copy or just small changes, like changing the names of variables, for a long enough piece of code, this is definitely copyright infringement if they don't obey the license terms of the code that copilot "learned" from.
twobitshifter 5y ago
You’ve fallen into the trap of thinking machine learning = human learning. It’s not at all equivalent. You can’t give GP3 4 years of course work at Carnegie Mellon and get autopilot. Similarly you can’t get a human to consume the complete GitHub corpus and even if they had the time they’d be unable to repeat code snippets they read verbatim with simple prompting.

gravypod 5y ago

While I disagree with this sentiment, if we take this as true and consider it "the same as a human learning to code from gpl libraries" this opens up an entirely different can of worms when it comes to patent assignment.

dTal 5y ago

A human won't "accidentally" retype the source code to Quake, including comments, changing only the license - so no, it isn't like that.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
If GitHub survives in court over this, I guarantee you someone will :3

soonerroadie 5y ago

If you read something that is copyrighted and rewrite it from memory, that’s still copying for purposes of the copyright act. There are cases about music where that’s unintentionally happened and the inadvertent copier was held liable. It’s basically what the machine learning is doing. Committing something to memory is no defense to copyright - I would recon a good number of people could recite any number of copyrighted works from memory (e.g., episodes of The Office, Seinfeld, or popular songs). If a person wrote that down and tried to sell it, I’m convinced a court would hold that person liable. There is a defense of “independent creation,” but basically if you saw/heard the copyrighted work before then it’s very hard to use that as a defense.

marcodiego 5y ago

If copilot produces a verbatim copy or just small changes, like changing the names of variables, for a long enough piece of code, this is definitely copyright infringement if they don't obey the license terms of the code that copilot "learned" from.

twobitshifter 5y ago

You’ve fallen into the trap of thinking machine learning = human learning. It’s not at all equivalent. You can’t give GP3 4 years of course work at Carnegie Mellon and get autopilot. Similarly you can’t get a human to consume the complete GitHub corpus and even if they had the time they’d be unable to repeat code snippets they read verbatim with simple prompting.