6 ms·

When did the HN crowd become so defensive of copyright? I understand the concerns on copilot but it’s kinda weirding me out.

by jjcon 5y ago

PaulKeeble 5y ago
Because its my (and many of ours) code they have "learnt" from, stripped the license and are intending to sell on. When we listed code under MIT or GPL we meant those licenses, they weren't random and Microsoft just seems to be completely ignoring the reality of reproducing those works which are covered by those licenses, they are making code private and paid for that is open source. Not OK.
ReactiveJelly 5y ago
Both the permissive and copyleft licenses are only enforcable through copyright law. I don't mind that copyright exists, I just wish it was better. Also there's a power difference between individuals violating the rights of a big company, and a big company violating the rights of many individuals. If Copilot isn't reined in, it feels like yet another case of "The laws only apply to poor people".
- lupire 5y ago
  What does it mean to "enforce" a "permissive" license?
  - jhugo 5y ago
    Attribution, mostly.
aurelian15 5y ago
As weird as it may seem, you should not forget that free software licenses are built upon the fabric of copyright. Without copyright, free software could not exist in its current form. For GPL-like "copyleft" licenses, there would be no way to enforce that binary distributions of derived works are accompanied by their source code. Similarly, in the context of permissive BSD/MIT-style licenses, there would be no way to enforce attribution. So, given that FOSS---which a large portion of the HN crowd depends on---cannot work without copyright (at least not in its current form), the recent discussions may be less of a surprise.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Maybe... although I personally think that the GPL and other 'copy left' licenses aren't the reason open source has prospered, nor do I think enforcing attribution really helps the FOSS world that much. People write and share code because it is useful to do that, not because licenses require them to. I think FOSS would do fine with no copyright, and in fact more software might end up open source if we had ZERO copyright... why not make your code open source and get back contributions when your code would end up being shared anyway?
  - dublin 5y ago
    There were other open source licenses at the party before the GPL dropped its controversial "viral" turd in the punchbowl - and many of them still exist nearly unmodified. (e.g. BSD with attribution removed, etc.)
    - cortesoft 5y ago
      I know, but I am just questioning whether any license is needed for open source to prosper. I am positing that if licenses didn't exist, and anyone could do anything they want with any bit of code they see, open source would still prosper.
      - okamiueru 5y ago
        That just isn't how things work. I believe you are making the wrong assumption that the same amount of open source work would exist. If that were the case, then yes, it wouldn't matter that much. But, a lot of contributions to open source wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the licenses. That's the examples you've been given.
        cortesoft 5y ago
        There might be some contributions that wouldn't have happened, but there also might have been others that did happen. My hypothetical was in a world with no copyright or license at all.... so all proprietary code would be copyable, too
michaelmrose 5y ago
Consider people's reaction to people selling boot leg DVDs vs torrenting a movie. Although people may consider both morally incorrect the corrupting profit motive results in the former being seen far more negatively. In the current situation there is also the matter that the Microsoft is still perceived rightly I think very negatively and open source authors very positively. Also in a David v Golliath situation nobody wants to be seen rooting for the giant. Personally I would be concerned about insert corp here accidentally stealing code from an open source project then years later going after the open source project for copyright infringement regarding the code they in fact stole from the open source project.
throw0101a 5y ago
> When did the HN crowd become so defensive of copyright? Copyright is good in limited quantities. The current multi-decade time horizon is probably what a lot of people are against, and not the concept in general. And limited time period seems to be consistent through history. From the paper "Copyrights and Creativity: Evidence from Italian Opera in the Napoleonic Age": > Comparing changes in the creation of new operas across Italian states with and without copyrights, we show that the adoption of basic copyrights encouraged the creation of new work. Moreover, we find that copyrights changed the quality of creative output by encouraging composers to produce more popular and durable works. These results generalize to a broader set of musical compositions and to librettos, as the literary component to the score of operas. Based on these findings, we conclude that the adoption of basic levels of copyright protection – not exceeding the lifetime of the composer – can help to raise both the quantity and the quality of new creative works. > Importantly, we find that extensions in the length of copyright beyond the composer’s life did not encourage creativity. Performance data reveal that few operas were played after the first 20 years, which suggests that only the most durable creative goods stand to gain from copyright extensions. […] * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2505776 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2505776
carom 5y ago
I guarantee this is not Microsoft's announcement that they are forfeiting their copyrights. This is just them abusing the spirit of ours.
hjek 5y ago
Say your AGPL code is Copiloted into someone's new program and they decide to release that under a non-free license; that's the issue. We're defensive of copyleft.
breck 5y ago
"The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken" Copyright is a horrible system. Microsoft has been one of the biggest proponents of that system. But now they've clearly violated it. They should either join in abolishing it, or face its consequences.
NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
Probably because when poor people give something for free to other people to lift them out of poverty it is called empowerment, but when billionaires take free work of poor people for their own personal selfish gain it is called - exploit.
zarzavat 5y ago
It's hypocrisy. People will defend entire books and research papers being shared on libgen/scihub, which is unarguably actual copyright infringement on a massive scale, but training an AI on open source code is somehow the worst thing ever even if there's no case law to say that this constitutes infringement at all.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  It's not hypocrisy to say that different types of work should have different copyright lengths, and that for some types the answer is zero. Especially if you remember the phrase "to promote the progress of science and useful arts".
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    It's self-serving hypocrisy when programmers argue for a very strict reading of copyright for their own works (source code) while at the same time arguing for unbounded sharing of other people's works (books and papers). If you agree with libgen and scihub then you should definitely not see anything wrong with copilot, because what copilot is doing is considerably milder, they are not reproducing anybody's works. If you disagree with libgen and scihub because they are illegal only then can the argument that copilot is infringing be made.
    - ric2b 5y ago
      The vast majority of research authors want their work to be freely available. The industry is just organized in a way that prevents that from happening without harming your research career.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      > It's self-serving hypocrisy when programmers argue for a very strict reading of copyright for their own works (source code) while at the same time arguing for unbounded sharing of other people's works (books and papers). Yes, if those were the only two things being discussed, it would be. But almost all of these people think a certain amount of copyright for songs and movies is good too. And I bet a vast majority of them support copyright for books too, or at least most books.
clusterfish 5y ago
This submission aside, it seems that most people are just concerned about getting sued on copyright grounds for using copilot.

When did the HN crowd become so defensive of copyright? I understand the concerns on copilot but it’s kinda weirding me out.

by jjcon 5y ago

When did the HN crowd become so defensive of copyright? I understand the concerns on copilot but it’s kinda weirding me out.

PaulKeeble 5y ago

Because its my (and many of ours) code they have "learnt" from, stripped the license and are intending to sell on. When we listed code under MIT or GPL we meant those licenses, they weren't random and Microsoft just seems to be completely ignoring the reality of reproducing those works which are covered by those licenses, they are making code private and paid for that is open source. Not OK.

ReactiveJelly 5y ago

Both the permissive and copyleft licenses are only enforcable through copyright law. I don't mind that copyright exists, I just wish it was better. Also there's a power difference between individuals violating the rights of a big company, and a big company violating the rights of many individuals. If Copilot isn't reined in, it feels like yet another case of "The laws only apply to poor people".

lupire 5y ago
What does it mean to "enforce" a "permissive" license?
- jhugo 5y ago
  Attribution, mostly.

aurelian15 5y ago

As weird as it may seem, you should not forget that free software licenses are built upon the fabric of copyright. Without copyright, free software could not exist in its current form. For GPL-like "copyleft" licenses, there would be no way to enforce that binary distributions of derived works are accompanied by their source code. Similarly, in the context of permissive BSD/MIT-style licenses, there would be no way to enforce attribution. So, given that FOSS---which a large portion of the HN crowd depends on---cannot work without copyright (at least not in its current form), the recent discussions may be less of a surprise.

cortesoft 5y ago
Maybe... although I personally think that the GPL and other 'copy left' licenses aren't the reason open source has prospered, nor do I think enforcing attribution really helps the FOSS world that much. People write and share code because it is useful to do that, not because licenses require them to. I think FOSS would do fine with no copyright, and in fact more software might end up open source if we had ZERO copyright... why not make your code open source and get back contributions when your code would end up being shared anyway?
- dublin 5y ago
  There were other open source licenses at the party before the GPL dropped its controversial "viral" turd in the punchbowl - and many of them still exist nearly unmodified. (e.g. BSD with attribution removed, etc.)
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    I know, but I am just questioning whether any license is needed for open source to prosper. I am positing that if licenses didn't exist, and anyone could do anything they want with any bit of code they see, open source would still prosper.
    - okamiueru 5y ago
      That just isn't how things work. I believe you are making the wrong assumption that the same amount of open source work would exist. If that were the case, then yes, it wouldn't matter that much. But, a lot of contributions to open source wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the licenses. That's the examples you've been given.
      - cortesoft 5y ago
        There might be some contributions that wouldn't have happened, but there also might have been others that did happen. My hypothetical was in a world with no copyright or license at all.... so all proprietary code would be copyable, too

michaelmrose 5y ago

Consider people's reaction to people selling boot leg DVDs vs torrenting a movie. Although people may consider both morally incorrect the corrupting profit motive results in the former being seen far more negatively. In the current situation there is also the matter that the Microsoft is still perceived rightly I think very negatively and open source authors very positively. Also in a David v Golliath situation nobody wants to be seen rooting for the giant. Personally I would be concerned about insert corp here accidentally stealing code from an open source project then years later going after the open source project for copyright infringement regarding the code they in fact stole from the open source project.

throw0101a 5y ago

> When did the HN crowd become so defensive of copyright? Copyright is good in limited quantities. The current multi-decade time horizon is probably what a lot of people are against, and not the concept in general. And limited time period seems to be consistent through history. From the paper "Copyrights and Creativity: Evidence from Italian Opera in the Napoleonic Age": > Comparing changes in the creation of new operas across Italian states with and without copyrights, we show that the adoption of basic copyrights encouraged the creation of new work. Moreover, we find that copyrights changed the quality of creative output by encouraging composers to produce more popular and durable works. These results generalize to a broader set of musical compositions and to librettos, as the literary component to the score of operas. Based on these findings, we conclude that the adoption of basic levels of copyright protection – not exceeding the lifetime of the composer – can help to raise both the quantity and the quality of new creative works. > Importantly, we find that extensions in the length of copyright beyond the composer’s life did not encourage creativity. Performance data reveal that few operas were played after the first 20 years, which suggests that only the most durable creative goods stand to gain from copyright extensions. […] * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2505776 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2505776

carom 5y ago

I guarantee this is not Microsoft's announcement that they are forfeiting their copyrights. This is just them abusing the spirit of ours.

hjek 5y ago

Say your AGPL code is Copiloted into someone's new program and they decide to release that under a non-free license; that's the issue. We're defensive of copyleft.

breck 5y ago

"The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken" Copyright is a horrible system. Microsoft has been one of the biggest proponents of that system. But now they've clearly violated it. They should either join in abolishing it, or face its consequences.

NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago

Probably because when poor people give something for free to other people to lift them out of poverty it is called empowerment, but when billionaires take free work of poor people for their own personal selfish gain it is called - exploit.

zarzavat 5y ago

It's hypocrisy. People will defend entire books and research papers being shared on libgen/scihub, which is unarguably actual copyright infringement on a massive scale, but training an AI on open source code is somehow the worst thing ever even if there's no case law to say that this constitutes infringement at all.

Dylan16807 5y ago
It's not hypocrisy to say that different types of work should have different copyright lengths, and that for some types the answer is zero. Especially if you remember the phrase "to promote the progress of science and useful arts".
- zarzavat 5y ago
  It's self-serving hypocrisy when programmers argue for a very strict reading of copyright for their own works (source code) while at the same time arguing for unbounded sharing of other people's works (books and papers). If you agree with libgen and scihub then you should definitely not see anything wrong with copilot, because what copilot is doing is considerably milder, they are not reproducing anybody's works. If you disagree with libgen and scihub because they are illegal only then can the argument that copilot is infringing be made.
  - ric2b 5y ago
    The vast majority of research authors want their work to be freely available. The industry is just organized in a way that prevents that from happening without harming your research career.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > It's self-serving hypocrisy when programmers argue for a very strict reading of copyright for their own works (source code) while at the same time arguing for unbounded sharing of other people's works (books and papers). Yes, if those were the only two things being discussed, it would be. But almost all of these people think a certain amount of copyright for songs and movies is good too. And I bet a vast majority of them support copyright for books too, or at least most books.

clusterfish 5y ago

This submission aside, it seems that most people are just concerned about getting sued on copyright grounds for using copilot.