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> a legal expert weighs in [...] And HN rallies to criticize it That is an appeal to authority. Being a legal expert does not excuse one's writing from critica

> a legal expert weighs in [...] And HN rallies to criticize it That is an appeal to authority. Being a legal expert does not excuse one's writing from critical analysis. In this case, the post does not address Copilot reproducing large segments of copyrighted code verbatim. That is valid criticism.

yunohn 5y ago
It is not an appeal to authority. I'm saying the expert is providing a legal explanation, and HN is throwing anecdotes around. There is no logical fallacy since HN refuses to even have a logical discussion about Copilot.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  The GP is correct. It is a logical fallacy that by definition is an appeal to authority, and this is the logical discussion.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    This discussion is heavily biased and prioritizes people's emotional need to be credited and/or paid for their work over a discussion of the legal and ethical concerns at play here. It disregards the comments of an expert in the field and focuses instead on demands that may well be unsupported by copyright law. For example, GitHub license section D.4 specifically grants GitHub the right to display your content, analyze your content, and reproduce it in full to other users of the service. Yet no one seems particularly interested in discussing that here today, because it isn't compatible with the outrage that people are prioritizing on HN when discussion Copilot. I would have expected HN to be better than Reddit in this regard, but I'm not seeing it yet. I don't know if the expert is right or wrong here, but nothing in today's comments suggests anything new or curious that hasn't already been ranted about in every prior thread about this topic. I specifically care about copyright law and it's disappointing to see HN having a group tantrum instead of a discussion. https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-of-service#d-user-generated-content https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o...
    - ghaff 5y ago
      The legal commentary I'm seeing from people who really know this stuff is pretty much unanimously in favor of this being legal in at least most of the world based on caselaw--while acknowledging why some might have ethical concerns. I'm actually sort of curious as to the vigor of the backlash. Because Microsoft? Because of concerns about perceived further undermining of the GPL in particular? Because of people anxious to get their credit? Because...?
      - IncRnd 5y ago
        > I'm actually sort of curious as to the vigor of the backlash. Because Microsoft? Because of concerns about perceived further undermining of the GPL in particular? Because of people anxious to get their credit? Because...? Because, this is really against the understanding of what was possible for copyrighted works. So, now that this is possible for anyone, copyright will start to get examined and hopefully updated to be useful in today's environment. There are about a million problems with this. This can even be used to intentionally launder source codes from a competitor. Apparently, all it will take will be to steal code (or just fork it), then create more than 10 copies on Github. At that point, copilot will start to emit the code during use. With all the legal commentary saying this isn't infringement, imagine how companies will be able to use this product. Similarly, the training set can be intentionally polluted, so your competitor finds the output of Copilot worthless.
      - floatingatoll 5y ago
        Because they’re not getting a share of GitHub’s future revenues from their works or from derivations or their work. (Why do they care so much about revenue? Open source coders and ‘starving artists’, not to mention Covid economic wreckage, the US approach to medical insurance, and the total absence of Universal Basic Income in virtually all countries permitted to access GitHub.)
        ghaff 5y ago
        So don't open source it and/or put it on GitHub?

yunohn 5y ago

It is not an appeal to authority. I'm saying the expert is providing a legal explanation, and HN is throwing anecdotes around. There is no logical fallacy since HN refuses to even have a logical discussion about Copilot.

IncRnd 5y ago
The GP is correct. It is a logical fallacy that by definition is an appeal to authority, and this is the logical discussion.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  This discussion is heavily biased and prioritizes people's emotional need to be credited and/or paid for their work over a discussion of the legal and ethical concerns at play here. It disregards the comments of an expert in the field and focuses instead on demands that may well be unsupported by copyright law. For example, GitHub license section D.4 specifically grants GitHub the right to display your content, analyze your content, and reproduce it in full to other users of the service. Yet no one seems particularly interested in discussing that here today, because it isn't compatible with the outrage that people are prioritizing on HN when discussion Copilot. I would have expected HN to be better than Reddit in this regard, but I'm not seeing it yet. I don't know if the expert is right or wrong here, but nothing in today's comments suggests anything new or curious that hasn't already been ranted about in every prior thread about this topic. I specifically care about copyright law and it's disappointing to see HN having a group tantrum instead of a discussion. https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-of-service#d-user-generated-content https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o...
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The legal commentary I'm seeing from people who really know this stuff is pretty much unanimously in favor of this being legal in at least most of the world based on caselaw--while acknowledging why some might have ethical concerns. I'm actually sort of curious as to the vigor of the backlash. Because Microsoft? Because of concerns about perceived further undermining of the GPL in particular? Because of people anxious to get their credit? Because...?
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      > I'm actually sort of curious as to the vigor of the backlash. Because Microsoft? Because of concerns about perceived further undermining of the GPL in particular? Because of people anxious to get their credit? Because...? Because, this is really against the understanding of what was possible for copyrighted works. So, now that this is possible for anyone, copyright will start to get examined and hopefully updated to be useful in today's environment. There are about a million problems with this. This can even be used to intentionally launder source codes from a competitor. Apparently, all it will take will be to steal code (or just fork it), then create more than 10 copies on Github. At that point, copilot will start to emit the code during use. With all the legal commentary saying this isn't infringement, imagine how companies will be able to use this product. Similarly, the training set can be intentionally polluted, so your competitor finds the output of Copilot worthless.
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      Because they’re not getting a share of GitHub’s future revenues from their works or from derivations or their work. (Why do they care so much about revenue? Open source coders and ‘starving artists’, not to mention Covid economic wreckage, the US approach to medical insurance, and the total absence of Universal Basic Income in virtually all countries permitted to access GitHub.)
      - ghaff 5y ago
        So don't open source it and/or put it on GitHub?