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If Copilot reads copyrighted code to learn, and it‘s copyright violation… Does the same apply to a human? Do we now define copyright violation differently for

If Copilot reads copyrighted code to learn, and it‘s copyright violation… Does the same apply to a human? Do we now define copyright violation differently for computers? I don‘t know the perfect answer here. But I‘m not so sure we should have standards that change depending on if a program is doing it or a human is doing it. Perhaps a bad standard to begin with. I do tend to learn towards thinking „company uses publicly available, open source code in product“ is somewhat of a nothing-burger though.

maleldil 4y ago
Framing this as learning is unhelpful. Copilot isn't just learning. It can reproduce code it saw during training verbatim. It will even reproduce the GPLv3 licence itself. If you copy-paste code from a GPLv3-licenced sourced without attribution, it's a copyright violation. Why should it be different for Copilot? EDIT: After more reading on the subject, I'm willing to accept that copyright infringement is unlikely here. This link [1] was the one I found most convincing. However, I would still shift the goalposts and look at this ethically, and I still think it's wrong that Microsoft is profiting from code with licences like GPLv3. This is a whole other topic, though. [1] https://www.technollama.co.uk/is-githubs-copilot-potentially-infringing-copyright https://www.technollama.co.uk/is-githubs-copilot-potentially...