5 ms·

> It would be because it's illegal and violates the licenses, desires, and intentions of the thousands of workers who wrote the code in its corpus. I wonder ho

> It would be because it's illegal and violates the licenses, desires, and intentions of the thousands of workers who wrote the code in its corpus. I wonder how many people on HN would be on the side of the creators if we were talking about content created by Walt Disney and whether pirating was ethical?

lbotos 4y ago
Wait, I'm not sure what you are trying to say? Can you clarify?
- scarface74 4y ago
  That many people who are criticizing Microsoft for using open source code and claiming “fair use” and saying it’s not fair to creators are the same ones that say pirating digital content is harmless.
  - pornel 4y ago
    Because issues aren't automatically symmetrical, and impact of actions isn't equal in both ways, especially when there's power difference between the sides of the conflict, e.g. it's not hypocritical to punish a bully punching their victim, but not the victim for punching the bully back. Disney used its power to distort copyright laws in a self-serving manner. As an individual you don't have equal power to oppose them (you were supposed to have in a democracy, but lobbying is legal and corporations are people). Disney is a huge corporation that won't even notice if you pirate a movie, which you may not even have been able to pay for anyway, because of their region-locked twisted maze of distribution and DRM. OTOH you may be screwed if you're a creator making a living from your work, and a big corp can just take it without paying, launder it through "… in the style of $YOURNAME" query, and say they own it now, because unlike your copyright, their Terms Of Service apply. Even people who think copyright shouldn't exist may rely on using copyright — against itself. You can't unilaterally say "I don't believe in copyright", because the law doesn't care, but if you license something as copyleft, then the law does care about your anti-copyright license.
- numpad0 4y ago
  There’s an assumption that hackers are automatically anarcho-communist, and unconditionally, wholeheartedly, vocally supportive of content piracy, which is not correct.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Hackers mostly are, but Hacker news is mostly frequented by bog standard developers, who mostly aren't.
Spivak 4y ago
I don’t think anyone at all is here arguing that an AI trained on a massive corpus of movies that outputs snippets of film based on a prompt would be illegal. Such a thing would literally be the same as Midjourney with images. The fact that you can likely coax any AI to output snippets close to some of the source material is not likely to really matter and would be as if you recreated a copyrighted work using any other tools.
- scarface74 4y ago
  What’s the difference here then?
yarg 4y ago
It'd probably turn towards Disney's history of bribing congress for copyright extensions whenever the mouse is about to enter the public domain.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The same copyright laws that the open source proponents are complaining about MS breaking?
  - yarg 4y ago
    Steamboat Willie was released in 1928. People probably would have less of a problem if microsoft breached the license on 100 year old code.
  - drstewart 4y ago
    There is a certain amount of irony that a likely possible outcome will be the strengthening of copyright laws and enforcement, at which point people will realize they won the battle but lost the war
    - yarg 4y ago
      The problem with copyright isn't that it exists and provides protections - this incentivises creators. But life of the creator + 70 years? Reminds me of this: https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years/ https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/07/research-optim... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1436186 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1436186
    - shagie 4y ago
      But isn't it copyright upon which open source is founded? The license is based on the right of the owner of the copyright to authorize someone else to create a derivative work? Without copyright, it would be perfectly legitimate and legal for someone to not follow a license (because it would bear no legal weight because of the lack of copyright). I would argue that open source is best served by strong copyright protections that allow the people created the software to make sure that further changes to it are released back to the community. Weakening copyright law means that it is that much easier for big companies to co-opt some software and not need to release the changes back.
reachableceo 4y ago
Equal protection under the law. I am 100% on the side of content creators. Regardless of who they are . The courts tend to take a dim view of theft. Which is what this is. The article clearly lays out that multiple requests for sound legal basis have gone unanswered . It simply doesn’t exist and Microsoft is operating on a forgiveness vs permission model. Licensing is 100% about permissions. Clear and explicit enumeration of the permissions (or lack thereof ) for a work. This class action lawsuit should surprise nobody. It’s a class that is sick and tired of being exploited. Do not take my work that I contributed with explicit permissions and use it in a way I didn’t grant permission for. Full stop. It isn’t complicated. You wouldn’t download a car and all that jazz….
- naikrovek 4y ago
  > The courts tend to take a dim view of theft. Which is what this is. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#d-user-generated-content https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... so much animosity over rights you gave GitHub when you put your code there. "Theft" gimme a break. you license your code to GitHub so they can show it to others. This is separate to the stated license in your code. Nowhere in that terms of service document are the means that the code is shown to users specified.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Give me a break. Did you even read the license? You read that it is restricted to "the service". That service cannot be copilot, because it didn't even exist when most people agreed to the license. Moreover the license explicitly states they cannot use the code to distribute in any other way or sell it. So if anything they are violating their own agreement. Also MS themselves don't even claim that training is covered by their terms of service, they claim it is fair use.
    - abigail95 4y ago
      What do you think is more likely, that Microsoft stuffed their own terms and conditions? Or you are mistaken and "the service" of github, includes all features available on the website including copilot. Even if you're right and a court rules against them, what's to stop them changing the terms to become compliant?
int_19h 4y ago
I don't think many people here would object if Copilot was trained on all the publicly available source code from before 1930.

lbotos 4y ago

Wait, I'm not sure what you are trying to say? Can you clarify?

scarface74 4y ago
That many people who are criticizing Microsoft for using open source code and claiming “fair use” and saying it’s not fair to creators are the same ones that say pirating digital content is harmless.
- pornel 4y ago
  Because issues aren't automatically symmetrical, and impact of actions isn't equal in both ways, especially when there's power difference between the sides of the conflict, e.g. it's not hypocritical to punish a bully punching their victim, but not the victim for punching the bully back. Disney used its power to distort copyright laws in a self-serving manner. As an individual you don't have equal power to oppose them (you were supposed to have in a democracy, but lobbying is legal and corporations are people). Disney is a huge corporation that won't even notice if you pirate a movie, which you may not even have been able to pay for anyway, because of their region-locked twisted maze of distribution and DRM. OTOH you may be screwed if you're a creator making a living from your work, and a big corp can just take it without paying, launder it through "… in the style of $YOURNAME" query, and say they own it now, because unlike your copyright, their Terms Of Service apply. Even people who think copyright shouldn't exist may rely on using copyright — against itself. You can't unilaterally say "I don't believe in copyright", because the law doesn't care, but if you license something as copyleft, then the law does care about your anti-copyright license.
numpad0 4y ago
There’s an assumption that hackers are automatically anarcho-communist, and unconditionally, wholeheartedly, vocally supportive of content piracy, which is not correct.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Hackers mostly are, but Hacker news is mostly frequented by bog standard developers, who mostly aren't.

Spivak 4y ago

I don’t think anyone at all is here arguing that an AI trained on a massive corpus of movies that outputs snippets of film based on a prompt would be illegal. Such a thing would literally be the same as Midjourney with images. The fact that you can likely coax any AI to output snippets close to some of the source material is not likely to really matter and would be as if you recreated a copyrighted work using any other tools.

scarface74 4y ago
What’s the difference here then?

yarg 4y ago

It'd probably turn towards Disney's history of bribing congress for copyright extensions whenever the mouse is about to enter the public domain.

scarface74 4y ago
The same copyright laws that the open source proponents are complaining about MS breaking?
- yarg 4y ago
  Steamboat Willie was released in 1928. People probably would have less of a problem if microsoft breached the license on 100 year old code.
- drstewart 4y ago
  There is a certain amount of irony that a likely possible outcome will be the strengthening of copyright laws and enforcement, at which point people will realize they won the battle but lost the war
  - yarg 4y ago
    The problem with copyright isn't that it exists and provides protections - this incentivises creators. But life of the creator + 70 years? Reminds me of this: https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years/ https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/07/research-optim... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1436186 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1436186
  - shagie 4y ago
    But isn't it copyright upon which open source is founded? The license is based on the right of the owner of the copyright to authorize someone else to create a derivative work? Without copyright, it would be perfectly legitimate and legal for someone to not follow a license (because it would bear no legal weight because of the lack of copyright). I would argue that open source is best served by strong copyright protections that allow the people created the software to make sure that further changes to it are released back to the community. Weakening copyright law means that it is that much easier for big companies to co-opt some software and not need to release the changes back.

reachableceo 4y ago

Equal protection under the law. I am 100% on the side of content creators. Regardless of who they are . The courts tend to take a dim view of theft. Which is what this is. The article clearly lays out that multiple requests for sound legal basis have gone unanswered . It simply doesn’t exist and Microsoft is operating on a forgiveness vs permission model. Licensing is 100% about permissions. Clear and explicit enumeration of the permissions (or lack thereof ) for a work. This class action lawsuit should surprise nobody. It’s a class that is sick and tired of being exploited. Do not take my work that I contributed with explicit permissions and use it in a way I didn’t grant permission for. Full stop. It isn’t complicated. You wouldn’t download a car and all that jazz….

naikrovek 4y ago
> The courts tend to take a dim view of theft. Which is what this is. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#d-user-generated-content https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... so much animosity over rights you gave GitHub when you put your code there. "Theft" gimme a break. you license your code to GitHub so they can show it to others. This is separate to the stated license in your code. Nowhere in that terms of service document are the means that the code is shown to users specified.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Give me a break. Did you even read the license? You read that it is restricted to "the service". That service cannot be copilot, because it didn't even exist when most people agreed to the license. Moreover the license explicitly states they cannot use the code to distribute in any other way or sell it. So if anything they are violating their own agreement. Also MS themselves don't even claim that training is covered by their terms of service, they claim it is fair use.
  - abigail95 4y ago
    What do you think is more likely, that Microsoft stuffed their own terms and conditions? Or you are mistaken and "the service" of github, includes all features available on the website including copilot. Even if you're right and a court rules against them, what's to stop them changing the terms to become compliant?

int_19h 4y ago

I don't think many people here would object if Copilot was trained on all the publicly available source code from before 1930.