> What if a human reads some restrictively licensed code and years later uses some idea he noticed in that code, maybe even no longer being aware from where thi

> What if a human reads some restrictively licensed code and years later uses some idea he noticed in that code, maybe even no longer being aware from where this idea comes? In general using the idea is fine, whether it is AI or human written. I think the major concern here is when the code is copied verbatim, or near verbatim. (AKA the produced code is not "transformative" upon the original) > But what if the system memorizes entire functions? What if a human does so? In both of these cases I believe it would be a copyright concern. It is not strictly defined, and it depends on the complexity of the function. If you memorized (|a| a + 1) I doubt any court would call that copying a creative work. But if you memorized the quake fast inverse square root it is likely protected under copyright, even if you changed the variable names and formatting. It seems clear to me that GitHub Copilot is capable of producing code that is copyrighted and needs to be used according to the copyright owner's license. Worse still, it doesn't appear of capable of knowing when it is doing that, and what the source is.