5 ms·

What's with the default to "if it's not explicitly legal, it must be illegal"? Imagine if every new piece of software your wrote had to be tested for legality

by invig 4y ago

What's with the default to "if it's not explicitly legal, it must be illegal"? Imagine if every new piece of software your wrote had to be tested for legality because you don't know that it's explicitly legal. Oh there aren't laws for this new thing, so I guess you should challenge yourself all the way to the supreme court? I get the author not liking Copilot, but I don't see that GitHub/Microsoft have any kind of obligation to figure this out just because they're GitHub/Microsoft. If I as an individual had this obligation placed upon me I'd just never write any more code. Ultimately I think, like open source, Copilot and the tools that will follow advance human progress in novel ways. Software getting easier to make is a good thing. If you don't like this particular implementation of something helpful, feel free to start an open source alternative without challenging yourself in the supreme court.

j2kun 4y ago
The licenses in question in this issue make it explicitly illegal for Copilot to reproduce their code.
- abigail95 4y ago
  I don't care what your license is, I'm going to use it and I'm going to claim fair use. What's explicitly illegal about this?
  - notacoward 4y ago
    > What's explicitly illegal about this? The fact that the work is copyrighted, rights withheld in the absence of a license and limited with one. Also, you should know that willful infringement can carry 5x the statutory damages compared to accidental, and spurious claims of fair use would be distinctly unhelpful to your case. Just by posting that comment, you have probably compromised your position in any future copyright case you might be involved in, or you might even have invited one. I really recommend being more careful when anything legal is involved.
gspencley 4y ago
> What's with the default to "if it's not explicitly legal, it must be illegal"? That's not how I interpret what's happening. People who produce things have rights over their products. Be it artists, craftsmen, inventors, entrepreneurs or coders. There is a legitimate question here as to whether CoPilot has infringed upon those rights. I don't see it being about "making something illegal." I see it about answering a valid question as to whether CoPilot is liable for measurable damages caused to creators under existing laws.
- anon2020dot00 4y ago
  A few snippets of code is not a product. If there was an open-source money-making product and someone builds a competing product using considerable help from CoPilot then that is a stronger case for damages then if someone just used some snippets of code in their own product. But at that point, it would be just like someone cloning the Github code without following the license and in that case, it should become obvious that there is a clear violation harming the creators. But in most use cases of CoPilot, where-in people are just using it to build their own product, I doubt there is a cause for damages.
  - gspencley 4y ago
    I'm using the word "product" to mean "something which was produced." I searched for a few definitions because I thought they might actually be different forms of the same word. Turns out I could be wrong about that, but that was my intent. Something that you produce is a "product" of your time, effort, labour etc. Doesn't matter if it's something that you are selling or not. Doesn't matter if it's a relatively small production. The point is you produced it. It is yours. The question is whether the courts will find damages. Everything else has nothing to do with my comment. You might have your own ideas and opinions, which is fine. So do I. Both are irrelevant. The point is that there is a legal question here that the courts alone are equipped to answer.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    a few snippets of a book also isn't a product, and yet it can absolutely be infringing.
jacooper 4y ago
Its better to know, even if you like Copilot and want it to continue. > I get the author not liking Copilot, but I don't see that GitHub/Microsoft have any kind of obligation to figure this out just because they're GitHub/Microsoft. Because its a trillion dollar company with an infinite amount of lawyers and legal resources?
notacoward 4y ago
> What's with the default to "if it's not explicitly legal, it must be illegal"? Authors have explicitly and deliberately made it illegal for a person (or corporation) to do what Copilot is doing. Doing it through the legal non-entity of an AI changes absolutely nothing; it's still illegal. To say otherwise is to say that "AI-washing" can be used to nullify any law, which is of course totally absurd. The assumption you lead with is not what anyone is actually trying to argue.
faeriechangling 4y ago
This struck me about the article, it's a really bad argument to point out Microsoft didn't point out the law that explicitly made copilot legal. Something not being explicitly legal doesn't make it illegal, although I'm not sure how the courts will rule on copilot.
nix0n 4y ago
> What's with the default to "if it's not explicitly legal, it must be illegal"? That's what "all rights reserved" means.
anonymousab 4y ago
Code on GitHub is "all rights reserved" by default, which means that it is illegal to copy by default. Only by adding a license does it get opened up and made legal to copy - though typically, only if you also include that license when you do so. So if you trained yourself to only regurgitate github code with wanton abandon and careless disregard for licensing, then yeah, you're liable to violate that default copyright, and certainly going to be violating license rules if you're regurgitating large blocks from memory but not their accompanying licenses. This is the system that github and Microsoft participate in and willingly and purposely perpetuate. They benefit immensely from copyright law and protection of their code. You can get that they will damned-well avoid letting copilot anywhere near Windows' source, and they would very much enforce their copyright if copilot was spitting that code out for the masses to use.

by invig 4y ago

j2kun 4y ago

The licenses in question in this issue make it explicitly illegal for Copilot to reproduce their code.

abigail95 4y ago
I don't care what your license is, I'm going to use it and I'm going to claim fair use. What's explicitly illegal about this?
- notacoward 4y ago
  > What's explicitly illegal about this? The fact that the work is copyrighted, rights withheld in the absence of a license and limited with one. Also, you should know that willful infringement can carry 5x the statutory damages compared to accidental, and spurious claims of fair use would be distinctly unhelpful to your case. Just by posting that comment, you have probably compromised your position in any future copyright case you might be involved in, or you might even have invited one. I really recommend being more careful when anything legal is involved.

gspencley 4y ago

> What's with the default to "if it's not explicitly legal, it must be illegal"? That's not how I interpret what's happening. People who produce things have rights over their products. Be it artists, craftsmen, inventors, entrepreneurs or coders. There is a legitimate question here as to whether CoPilot has infringed upon those rights. I don't see it being about "making something illegal." I see it about answering a valid question as to whether CoPilot is liable for measurable damages caused to creators under existing laws.

anon2020dot00 4y ago
A few snippets of code is not a product. If there was an open-source money-making product and someone builds a competing product using considerable help from CoPilot then that is a stronger case for damages then if someone just used some snippets of code in their own product. But at that point, it would be just like someone cloning the Github code without following the license and in that case, it should become obvious that there is a clear violation harming the creators. But in most use cases of CoPilot, where-in people are just using it to build their own product, I doubt there is a cause for damages.
- gspencley 4y ago
  I'm using the word "product" to mean "something which was produced." I searched for a few definitions because I thought they might actually be different forms of the same word. Turns out I could be wrong about that, but that was my intent. Something that you produce is a "product" of your time, effort, labour etc. Doesn't matter if it's something that you are selling or not. Doesn't matter if it's a relatively small production. The point is you produced it. It is yours. The question is whether the courts will find damages. Everything else has nothing to do with my comment. You might have your own ideas and opinions, which is fine. So do I. Both are irrelevant. The point is that there is a legal question here that the courts alone are equipped to answer.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  a few snippets of a book also isn't a product, and yet it can absolutely be infringing.

jacooper 4y ago

Its better to know, even if you like Copilot and want it to continue. > I get the author not liking Copilot, but I don't see that GitHub/Microsoft have any kind of obligation to figure this out just because they're GitHub/Microsoft. Because its a trillion dollar company with an infinite amount of lawyers and legal resources?

notacoward 4y ago

> What's with the default to "if it's not explicitly legal, it must be illegal"? Authors have explicitly and deliberately made it illegal for a person (or corporation) to do what Copilot is doing. Doing it through the legal non-entity of an AI changes absolutely nothing; it's still illegal. To say otherwise is to say that "AI-washing" can be used to nullify any law, which is of course totally absurd. The assumption you lead with is not what anyone is actually trying to argue.

faeriechangling 4y ago

This struck me about the article, it's a really bad argument to point out Microsoft didn't point out the law that explicitly made copilot legal. Something not being explicitly legal doesn't make it illegal, although I'm not sure how the courts will rule on copilot.

nix0n 4y ago

anonymousab 4y ago

Code on GitHub is "all rights reserved" by default, which means that it is illegal to copy by default. Only by adding a license does it get opened up and made legal to copy - though typically, only if you also include that license when you do so. So if you trained yourself to only regurgitate github code with wanton abandon and careless disregard for licensing, then yeah, you're liable to violate that default copyright, and certainly going to be violating license rules if you're regurgitating large blocks from memory but not their accompanying licenses. This is the system that github and Microsoft participate in and willingly and purposely perpetuate. They benefit immensely from copyright law and protection of their code. You can get that they will damned-well avoid letting copilot anywhere near Windows' source, and they would very much enforce their copyright if copilot was spitting that code out for the masses to use.