4 ms·
> The writing is on the wall. You MUST host your own code on a stand-alone website. How would self hosting your code prevent Microsoft/GitHub from using it in
by rustc 5y ago
> The writing is on the wall. You MUST host your own code on a stand-alone website.
How would self hosting your code prevent Microsoft/GitHub from using it in the Copilot training dataset? If using content from GitHub irrespective of their license to train Copilot is legal, so is training from code available on your website.
- nerdponx 5y agoIt's a question of handing it over and giving them a ToS shield to hide behind, versus making them work for it and risking license violations "in the wild".
- rustc 5y agoDoes their ToS give them additional rights to the code uploaded to GitHub? There are several unofficial copies of projects like glibc [1] uploaded by people who definitely do not have the authority to grant any additional rights to the code. [1]: https://github.com/bminor/glibc https://github.com/bminor/glibc
- 37ef_ced3 5y agoMicrosoft owns GitHub and you accept their terms of service. Copilot is trained on public GitHub repositories of any license: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub_Copilot#Technology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub_Copilot#Technology If they scrape your website, that's different.
- judge2020 5y agoIf it's legally sound to do that, then it's legally sound to scrape code from Stack overflow as well. No special license is granted to GitHub to train CoPilot; the hosting license in the ToS[0] specifically doesn't allow its use outside of GitHub itself[1], so i'd argue that applies to running copilot in VSCode for code not destined for GitHub - and i'm sure MS's lawyers reviewed such a product launch. 0: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-of-service#4-license-grant-to-us https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o... 1: > This license does not grant GitHub the right to .. otherwise distribute or use Your Content outside of our provision of the Service
- jen20 5y agoBecause it isn’t in compliance with the terms of many popular licenses to create derivative works without attribution. Therefore the only possible claim Microsoft have to do so is via terms and conditions, which would not apply to code hosted on a stand-alone website. It might be time for popular licenses to update themselves for this new-found threat.
- defen 5y agoWhat happens when some random person uploads your code (acquired from your website) to GitHub?
- leephillips 5y agoIt depends on how that code is licensed. Possibly the random person gets served with a summons. Possibly nothing.
- jen20 5y agoWell, that is what updating the license accomplishes. I’d be interested to know if code subject to DCMA takedown would be removed from the copilot training set…
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago> it isn’t in compliance with the terms of many popular licenses to create derivative works without attribution Did you click the link for this article? Did you see that MS removed the author’s name in the license header and replaced it with their own?
- jen20 5y agoYes?
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Therefore the only possible claim Microsoft have to do so is via terms and conditions No, Microsoft's claim is fair use, not GitHub terms and conditions. You don't have to speculate on what you think their possible claims are, when they've publicly stated their actual claims.