16 ms·

I’m not a lawyer, but here is why I believe a class action lawsuit is correct; “AI” is just fancy speak for “complex math program”. If I make a program that’s

• rowanG077 4y ago
  The brain is also just a "complex math program". Since math is just the language we use to describe the world. I don't feel this argument has any weight at all.
  • Supermancho 4y ago
    > The brain is also just a "complex math program". This is not a fact.
    • rowanG077 4y ago
      Explain yourself. There is not a understood natural phenomenon which we could not capture in math. If you argue behavior of the brain cannot be modeled using a complex math program you are claiming the brain is qualitative different then any mechanism known to man since the dawn of time. The physics that gives rise to the brain is pretty much known. We can model all the protons, electrons and photons incredibly accurately. It's an extraordinary claim you say the brain doesn't function according to these known mechanisms.
      • bqmjjx0kac 4y ago
        > There is not a understood natural phenomenon which we could not capture in math. If all you have is a hammer... The nature of consciousness is an open question. We don't know whether the brain is equivalent to a Turing machine.
      • moralestapia 4y ago
        >Explain yourself. Why? Burden of proof is on you.
      • heavyset_go 4y ago
        > We can model all the protons, electrons and photons incredibly accurately. We can't even accurately model a receptor protein on a cell or the binding of its ligands, nor can we accurately simulate a single neuron. This is one of those hard problems in computing and medicine. It is very much an open question about how or if we can model complex biology accurately like that.
        • rowanG077 4y ago
          I didn't say we can simulate it. There is a massive leap from what I said to being able to simulate it.
          • Supermancho 4y ago
            > There is not a understood natural phenomenon which we could not capture in math. This is a belief about our ability to construct models, not a fact. Models are leaky abstractions, by nature. Models using models are exponentially leaky. > I didn't say we can simulate it. Mathematics (at large) is descriptive. We describe matter mathematically, as it's convenient to make predictions with a shared modeling of the world, but the quantum of matter is not an equation. f() at any scale of complexity, does not transmute.
          • heavyset_go 4y ago
            I'm using simulate as a synonym for model. For any biological model at the atomic, molecular and protein levels, accuracy is key for useful models. What I'm saying is that accuracy at that level is a hard problem in computing and biology, and even simple protein interactions are hard problems.
      • CogitoCogito 4y ago
        > There is not a understood natural phenomenon which we could not capture in math. Does the brain fall in into the category of “understood natural phenomenon”? Is it “understood”? What does “understood” mean in this context?
      • layer8 4y ago
        You are confusing the nondiscrete math of physics with the discrete math of computation. Even with unlimited computational resources, we can’t simulate arbitrary physical systems exactly, or even with limited error bounds (see chaos theory). What a program (mathematical or not) in the turing-machine sense can do is only a tiny, tiny subset of what physics can do. Personally I believe it’s likely that the brain can essentially be reduced to a computation, but we have no proof of that.
      • nodogoto 4y ago
        > There is not a understood natural phenomenon which we could not capture in math. You are saying "If we know how something works, we can explain how it works using math." But we know almost nothing about how the brain works. > The physics that gives rise to the brain is pretty much known. ...no it is not! No physicist would describe any physical phenomenon as being "pretty much known". Let alone cognition. We don't even have a complete atomic model.
      • chlorion 4y ago
        I think you are mostly correct but most people don't like this explanation and choose to believe in magic or spirits or whatever instead of physical reality. For some reason the brain is "magic" and non-physical unlike other organs (and everything else that exists) to most people. It's almost impossible to convince anyone of this though and it's not even worth trying.
        • Supermancho 4y ago
          > most people don't like this explanation and choose to believe in magic or spirits or whatever instead of physical reality. You have it reversed. Math is a language tool to describe things, in a limited fashion (our current modeling). One is physical matter (even if it's antimatter). If you believe that there will be a language that can describe anything, it still doesn't manifest matter by speaking that language or describing it...unless you're into magic or spirits or whatever. This disconnect has nothing to do with how well we do or do not understand physical phenomena. I think what the OP meant to say (and probably you support) is how the "mind" or how we think, can be described with mathematical models. Maybe one day we will have a full understanding, but we're not there yet and not currently in a way that is legally compelling.
  • lisper 4y ago
    Somewhere in the complex math is the origin of whatever it is in intellectual property that we deem worthy of protection. Because we are humans, we take the complex math done by human brains as worthy of protection by fiat. When a painter paints a tree, we assign the property interest in the painting to the human painter, not the tree, notwithstanding that the tree made an essential contribution to the content. The whole point is to protect the interests of humans (to give them an incentive to work). There is no other reason to even entertain the concept of "property".
    • rowanG077 4y ago
      Creations by AI should obviously be protected by fiat as well. Anything else is a ridiculous double standard that will stifle progress.
      • layer8 4y ago
        As long as AIs are incapable of recognizing when they are plagiarizing, as humans are generally capable of, the double standard seems entirely warranted.
        • Filligree 4y ago
          > as humans are generally capable of Citation needed. I've never plagiarised on purpose, sure, but I've caught myself at least several dozen times well after the act.
          • layer8 4y ago
            Well, that you caught yourself is already something that makes a difference. It would already change the equation if Copilot would send an email saying “Hey, that snippet xyz I suggested yesterday is actually plagiarized from repo abc. I’m truly sorry about that, I’ll do my best to be more careful in the future.” As far as “citation needed”, humans are being convicted for plagiarism, so it is generally assumed that they are able to tell and hence can be held responsible for it. Responsibility or liability is really the crux here. As long as AIs can’t be made liable for their actions (output) like humans or legal entities can, instead the AI operators must be held accountable, and it’s arguably their responsibility to take all practical measures to prevent their AIs from plagiarizing, or from otherwise violating license terms.
  • kadoban 4y ago
    The legal world tends to be less interested in these kind of logical gotchas than engineering types would like. I don't see a judge caring about that brain framing at all. Not to mention, if your brain starts outputting Microsoft copyright code, they're going to sue the shit out of you and win, so I'm not sure how that would help even so.
  • yoyohello13 4y ago
    So if I read the windows explorer source code, then later produced a line for line copy (without referring back to the source). Microsoft couldn't sue me?
  • bombolo 4y ago
    > The brain is also just a "complex math program" Source?
    • rowanG077 4y ago
      The physics that gives rise to the brain is pretty much known. We can model all the protons, electrons and photons incredibly accurately.
      • iampuero 4y ago
        I feel like this is a massive oversimplification... In this answer, you're completely ignoring the massive fact that we cannot create a human brain. Having mathematical models about particles does not mean we have "solved" the brain. Unless you're also believe that these LLMs are actually behaving just like human brains, in that have consciousness, they have logic, they dream, they have nightmares, they produce emotions such as fear, love, anger, that they grow and change over time, that they controls body, your lungs, heart, etc... You see my point, right? Surely you see that the statement 'The brain is also just a "complex math program"' is at best extremely over-simplistic.
      • bqmjjx0kac 4y ago
        > The physics that gives rise to the brain is pretty much known There is a gaping chasm between observing known physics, and saying it is the cause of consciousness. You should read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind [ Edit: better link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness ]
      • goatlover 4y ago
        There's certainly no model of a brain at the level of protons, electrons and photons. That's way beyond our level of mathematical understanding or computational ability. Biology isn't understood at the level of physics.
  • fsflover 4y ago
    It might be. If your brain generated verbatim someone's code without following its license, you would also break copyright, wouldn't you?
  • kyruzic 4y ago
    No it's actually not.
  • willhslade 4y ago
    So how and why do we solve the halting problem?
  • willhslade 4y ago
    Also, to pile on, if I use my brain to read GPL source code and then type it in again on my own, I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of violating copyright.
• ugh123 4y ago
  Attributions are fundamental to open source? I thought having source openly available was fundamental to open source (and allowed use without liability/warranty) as per apache, mit, and other licenses. If they just stick to using permissive-licensed source code then i'm not sure what the actual 'harm' is with co-pilot. If they auto-generate an acknowledgement file for all source repos used in co-pilot, and then asked clients of co-pilot to ship that file with their product, would that be enough? Call it "The Extended Github Co-Pilot Derivative Use License" or something.
  • TAForObvReasons 4y ago
    Attributions are fundamental to permissive licenses as well. It's worth reading the licenses in question. MIT: > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. This is the "attribution" requirement that even a Copilot trained on only-MIT code would miss. If it were just about sharing code, there are public domain declarations and variants like CC0 licenses
  • neongreen 4y ago
    Apparently they are using GPL-licensed code as well, see https://twitter.com/DocSparse/status/1581461734665367554 https://twitter.com/DocSparse/status/1581461734665367554 After five minutes of googling I'm still not sure if using MIT code requires an attribution, but many people claim it does, see https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/8163 https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/8163 as one example
    • xigoi 4y ago
      From GitHub itself (emphasis mine): > A short and simple permissive license with conditions only requiring preservation of copyright and license notices. Licensed works, modifications, and larger works may be distributed under different terms and without source code.
    • nyberg 4y ago
      MIT explicitly states that it does in the license.
• drvortex 4y ago
  Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. And that is why this lawsuit is dead on arrival.
  • Cort3z 4y ago
    Just to be clear; I cannot prove that they have used my code, but for the sake of argument, lets assume so. They would have directly used my code when they trained the thing. I see it as an equivalent of creating a zip-file. My code is not directly in the zip file either. Only by the act of un-zipping does it come back, which requires a sequence of math-steps.
    • Filligree 4y ago
      But there is no equivalent of "unzipping" for Copilot. This is a generative neural network. It doesn't contain a copy of your code; it contains weightings that were slightly adjusted by your code. Getting it to output a literal copy is only possible in two cases: - If your code solves a problem that can only be solved in a single way, for a given coding style / quality level. The AI will usually produce the same result, given the same input, and it's going to be an attempt at a solution. This isn't copyright violation. - If 'your' code has actually already been replicated hundreds of times over, such that the AI was over-trained on it. In that case it's a copyright violation... but how come you never went after the hundreds of other violations?
      • account42 4y ago
        There is no guarantee that a ML network only produces the input data under those two conditions. But even for > If 'your' code has actually already been replicated hundreds of times over, such that the AI was over-trained on it. In that case it's a copyright violation... but how come you never went after the hundreds of other violations? Replication is not a violation if the terms of the license are followed. Many open source projects are replicated hundreds of times with no license violation - that doesn't mean that you can now ignore the license. But even if they did violate the license, that doesn't give you the right to do it too. There is no requirement to enforce copyright consistently - see e.g. mods for games which are more often than not redistributing copyrighted content and derivatives of it but usually don't run into trouble because they benefit the copyright owner. But try to make your own game based on that same content and the original publisher will not handle it in the same way as those mods. Same for OSS licenses: The original author does not lose any rights to sue you if they have ignored technical license violations by others when those uses are acceptable to the original author.
• smoldesu 4y ago
  > “AI” is just fancy speak for “complex math program” Not really? It's less about arithmetic and more about inferencing data in higher dimensions than we can understand. Comparing it to traditional computation is a trap, same as treating it like a human mind. They've very different, under the surface. IMO, if this is a data problem then we should treat it like one. Simple fix - find a legal basis for which licenses are permissive enough to allow for ML training, and train your models on that. The problem here isn't developers crying out in fear of being replaced by robots, it's more that the code that it is reproducing is not licensed for reproduction (and the AI doesn't know that). People who can prove that proprietary code made it into Copilot deserve a settlement. Schlubs like me who upload my dotfiles under BSD don't fall under the same umbrella, at least the way I see it.
  • Cort3z 4y ago
    Who decides what constitutes an "AI program" vs just a "program"? What heuristic do we look at? At the end of the day, they have an equivalent of a .exe which runs, and outputs code that has a license attached to it.
    • AnnasVirtual 4y ago
      no, you clearly don't understand Neural Network, basically it's a file containing artificial neurons and their connections
    • bobbruno 4y ago
      I can suggest an idea, considering that the “AI program” is the model, not the training algorithm. A program gets written by an entity (usually a person) and is executed to generate the desired output according to a deterministic mathematical function it expresses. A training algorithm is a program that gets written to train a model (the model being the “AI Program”) when presented to some training data inputs, to implement a function that is not the training algorithm function itself, but another one, generalising over a problem domain beyond just the original examples fed to the training algorithm. The output model is not the training algorithm or the training data (or an encoding of it) and exists as its own artefact, independent of both.
• sigzero 4y ago
  > I’m not a lawyer, but Should have stopped there.
  • Cort3z 4y ago
    Why?
    • sigzero 4y ago
      Dang it. I was coming back to delete that comment. It was a stupid one.
  • operatingthetan 4y ago
    This is not a thread for lawyers to discuss only.
• spiralpolitik 4y ago
  At this point we are back in the territory that the idea and the expression of the idea are inseparable, therefore the conclusion will be that copyright protection does not apply to code. Personally I think this has the potential to blow up in everyones faces.
  • pevey 4y ago
    If it does end up that way, I feel like the trickle away from github will become a stampede. And that would be unfortunate. Having such a good hub for sharing and learning code is useful, but only if licenses are respected. If not, people will just hunker down and treat code like the Coke secret recipe. That benefits no one.
• njharman 4y ago
  Say you read a bunch of code, say over years of developer career. What you write is influenced by all that. Will include similar patterns, similar code and identical snippets, knowingly or not. How large does snippet have to be before it's copyright? "x"? "x==1"? "if x==1\n print('x is one')"? [obviously, replace with actual common code like if not found return 404]. Do you want to be vulnerable to copyright litigation for code you write? Can you afford to respond to every lawsuit filed by disgruntled wingbat, large corp wanting to shut down open source / competing project?
  • devmor 4y ago
    This is a logical fallacy. A human is not an algorithm. We do not have to extend rights regarding novel invention to an algorithm to protect them for people.
    • robbrown451 4y ago
      Differentiating between a human and a machine simply because one "is not an algorithm" doesn't make a lot of sense. If it were true, people would very easily game it, by using algorithms to automate the most trivial parts of copying someone's work. Ultimately the algorithm is automating something a human could do. There is a lot of gray area to copyright law, but you can't get around that simply by offloading to an algorithm.
      • ranguna 4y ago
        > you can't get around that simply by offloading to an algorithm. You can ...? By simply saying existing fair usage rights are limited to be used by humans and not for-profit companies building for-profit products.
        • robbrown451 4y ago
          First of all, that isn't simple. How do you determine what is done by humans? If the human is using a computer and using copy and paste does that still qualify? No matter where you draw the line between "done by computers" and "done by a human simply using a computer as a tool," there will always be a lot of gray area. Also, if I spend a year creating my masterpiece, and some kid releases a copy of it for free and claims that that's ok just because it's "not for profit," there is still a problem.
• benlivengood 4y ago
  Humans are just compression with extra steps by that logic. There's a fairly simple technical fix for codex/copilot anyway; stick a search engine on the back end and index the training data and don't output things found in the search engine.
  • devmor 4y ago
    I dont think that would work very well because there are not infinite ways to succinctly solve most programming problems. In fact the majority of solutions will look exactly the same. The real solution is very, very simple. Only use opt-in training data. Don't acquire codebases from people who didn't agree to it.
    • bombolo 4y ago
      opt-in is complicated. If I own a repository on github and I have received contributions from other people, or included a .h file from mpv (thing that I have done), do I still have the right to click the opt-in button? I didn't ask the other contributors. But github is in a position to scan my code and see if there are copy paste bits and disable the opt-in button in that case. Except they act in bad faith so they wouldn't do that.
    • benlivengood 4y ago
      > I dont think that would work very well because there are not infinite ways to succinctly solve most programming problems. In fact the majority of solutions will look exactly the same. Algorithms can't be patented or copyrighted, as they are pure mathematics. If an implementation of an algorithm has no creative content because it is succinct then it likely doesn't deserve copyright.
  • dleslie 4y ago
    If I were to memorize my employer's IP then reproduce it (almost) verbatim and give it to a competitor, then I would be setting myself up for a world of legal hurt. So yes, it is like how human memory is compression with extra steps.
  • WithinReason 4y ago
• cdrini 4y ago
  I haven't heard anyone saying that copilot is legal "just because it's AI." That's a pretty bad faith, reductive, and disingenuous representation. The core argument I've seen is that the output is sufficiently transformative and not straight up copying.
  • pessimizer 4y ago
    > The core argument I've seen is that the output is sufficiently transformative and not straight up copying. An argument that isn't made about any other type of algorithm.
    • jelled 4y ago
      Suppose you own the rights to a jpeg. And I apply a simple algorithm that increments every hex value. So 00 becomes 01 and so on. The gibberish images it spits out would be so different then your original image that you wouldn't have any claim to them at all.
      • still_grokking 4y ago
        So I may create a tool that is capable of "incrementing every hex value" of an image, and also of "decrementing every hex value", and than distribute any of your images after "incrementing the hex values", together with said tool, right? Or maybe it would be enough to just zip your image, to be allowed to distribute it? In the end the bytes I would distribute than "would be so different then your original image that you wouldn't have any claim to them at all", right?
      • account42 4y ago
        I encourage you to go get a copy of the latest hollywood blockbuster, apply your transformation, share it on the internet and see if the courts agree with your copyright hack.
    • Filligree 4y ago
      Because other algorithms don't work this way, and aren't as transformative. Is your claim that no algorithm can be transformative?
• D13Fd 4y ago
  Correct legally, morally, or both? Legally a copyright claim seems weak, but they didn't assert one. Some of their claims look stronger than others. The DMCA claim in particular strikes me as strong-ish at first glance, though. Morally I think this class action is dead wrong. This is how innovation dies. Many of the class members likely do not want to kill Copilot and every future service that operates similarly. Beyond that, the class members aren't likely to get much if any money. The only party here who stands to clearly benefit is the attorneys.
  • williamtrask 4y ago
    I don’t think this lawsuit would hinder innovation but it would greatly change it and who owns it. If an AI model is the joint property of all the people who contributed IP to it, it’s a pretty hugely democratic and decentralizing force. It also will incentivise a huge amount of innovation on better, richer data sources for AI. If an AI model isn’t joint property of the IP it learned then it’s a great way to build extractive business models because the raw resource is mostly free. This will incentivise larger, more centralised entities. Much of the most interesting data comes from everyday people. A class action precedent is probably good for society and good for innovation (particularly pushing innovation on the edge/data collection side)
    • shanusmagnus 4y ago
      If the resource is free and non-rivalrous, what is being extracted?
      • saurik 4y ago
        The resource is not "free": it is provided under a license that attempts to lay out the terms the entity using the resource must comply with in order to get the benefit of using their product; just because this is a non-monetary compensation doesn't mean it is "free".
        • D13Fd 4y ago
• williamcotton 4y ago
  Here's what actual lawyers will focus on: Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison The AFC test is a three-step process for determining substantial similarity of the non-literal elements of a computer program. The process requires the court to first identify the increasing levels of abstraction of the program. Then, at each level of abstraction, material that is not protectable by copyright is identified and filtered out from further examination. The final step is to compare the defendant's program to the plaintiff's, looking only at the copyright-protected material as identified in the previous two steps, and determine whether the plaintiff's work was copied. In addition, the court will assess the relative significance of any copied material with respect to the entire program. Abstraction The purpose of the abstraction step is to identify which aspects of the program constitute its expression and which are the ideas. By what is commonly referred to as the idea/expression dichotomy, copyright law protects an author's expression, but not the idea behind that expression. In a computer program, the lowest level of abstraction, the concrete code of the program, is clearly expression, while the highest level of abstraction, the general function of the program, might be better classified as the idea behind the program. The abstractions test was first developed by the Second Circuit for use in literary works, but in the AFC test, they outline how it might be applied to computer programs. The court identifies possible levels of abstraction that can be defined. In increasing order of abstraction; these are: individual instructions, groups of instructions organized into a "hierarchy of modules", the functions of the lowest-level modules, the functions of the higher-level modules, the "ultimate function" of the code. Filtration The second step is to remove from consideration aspects of the program which are not legally protectable by copyright. The analysis is done at each level of abstraction identified in the previous step. The court identifies three factors to consider during this step: elements dictated by efficiency, elements dictated by external factors, and elements taken from the public domain. The court explains that elements dictated by efficiency are removed from consideration based on the merger doctrine which states that a form of expression that is incidental to the idea cannot be protected by copyright. In computer programs, concerns for efficiency may limit the possible ways to achieve a particular function, making a particular expression necessary to achieving the idea. In this case, the expression is not protected by copyright. Eliminating elements dictated by external factors is an application of the scènes à faire doctrine to computer programs. The doctrine holds that elements necessary for, or standard to, expression in some particular theme cannot be protected by copyright. Elements dictated by external factors may include hardware specifications, interoperability and compatibility requirements, design standards, demands of the market being served, and standard programming techniques. Finally, material that exists in the public domain can not be copyrighted and is also removed from the analysis. Comparison The final step of the AFC test is to consider the elements of the program identified in the first step and remaining after the second step, and for each of these compare the defendant's work with the plaintiff's to determine if the one is a copy of the other. In addition, the court will look at the importance of the copied portion with respect to the entire program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Compari...
• Ptchd 4y ago
  I agree with you, buy what if you share 1% of a copyright binary file that is completely useless when shared partially, is that infringement?
  • rad_gruchalski 4y ago
    “Any reproduction in part or as a whole…”
    • Filligree 4y ago
      Happens by accident all the time, though. Copyright laws, if enforced perfectly, would make programming simply impossible. We've been skating by on people not really enforcing them, despite the laws still being on the books, and the existence of tools like this makes that not a viable strategy. Today it's Copilot, which can be shut down, but tomorrow it'll be something developers can run at home. Bits don't have colour; there's no way to distinguish between a copy happening by independent recreation, and one that's actually a copy. So we'll need proper rulings. In fact, considering Fauxpilot, that will happen as soon as the models have improved somewhat. *: Of course I don't think "independent recreation" is really a thing. Humans are excellent at open source laundering. It's called "learning".
      • LtWorf 4y ago
        Happening by accident is one thing, selling a product based on it happening is a different thing.
• williamcotton 4y ago
  I read most of the complaint. The only examples of supposed copyright infringement are isEven and isPrime functions. Here's what Copilot gives me in a Typescript file: function isPrime(n: number): boolean { for (let i = 2; i < n; i++) { if (n % i === 0) { return false; } } return n > 1; } function isEven(n: number): boolean { return n % 2 === 0; } These are clearly not covered by copyright in the first place. This case is really quite pathetic.
  • echelon 4y ago
    Moreover, if this case wins, it threatens to disrupt one of the biggest technological progressions of all time. AI/ML will change every field just as the Internet and smartphones did. It doesn't show any indication of peaking, either. If the US chooses the wrong path here, we'll only tie our hands behind our backs. Other countries won't be so foolish. We should be able to train on any media a child could see, hear, or read.
    • still_grokking 4y ago
      Especially the copyright / IP obsessed USA won't go this path. Otherwise they would create the ultimate "copyright laundry machine".[1] I'm very sure at least Hollywood and the big music labels would not like that… ;-) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33459967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33459967
    • ranguna 4y ago
      > it threatens to disrupt one of the biggest technological progressions of all time. Chill dude, all they have to do is include the licenses on their generated code. If anything, this is going to generate even more progress. The copilot team would have to create some kind of feature that would connect the generated output the the relevant training data. That'd be pretty incredible to see in the field of AI/ML in general.
      • WithinReason 4y ago
        They already have that feature and you can turn it on
• bloppe 4y ago
  The problem with the class action lawsuit against GitHub is this: if you host your code on GitHub, it doesn't matter what license you use. Microsoft can do whatever they want with it. You agreed to this by agreeing to their terms and conditions.
  • zhfliz 4y ago
    anyone can upload someone else's code to GitHub, not just people who can grant such permission.
    • bloppe 4y ago
      The end user agreement also says you must have the authority to grant these epic rights to GitHub, i.e. you cannot upload someone else's code. They could probably absolve themselves from responsibility due to your having committed wire fraud in this case. But, alas, IANAL.
      • shagie 4y ago
        If I have access to the source of a BSD, MIT, or GPL project - is there anything in those licenses that would prevent me from mirroring it on GitHub or GitLab?
• galaxyLogic 4y ago
  Who should be sued? Microsoft who produces an application known as "Copilot" which itself contains nobody else's code but Microsoft's? OR the person who USES Copilot, to produce code which contains somebody else's copyrighted code? Using Copilot is a bit like using a shotgun, can be very illegal depending on what you shoot at. Creating and distributing the app Copilot is like creating and selling a shotgun.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • ranguna 4y ago
    Everyone, copilot because they used (for training) and generate copyrighted code for they product and people that use the product. Although users can probably get away with it because they didn't know copilot was actively generating copyrighted code.
    • bombolo 4y ago
      They know now.
      • AnnasVirtual 4y ago
        copilot only generate copyrighted when it seen the code many many times and that called memorization in machine learning, machine learning researchers will always try to decrease the amount of memorization in their artificial neurons
        • bombolo 4y ago
          They didn't succeed, it seems.
  • account42 4y ago
    Microsoft produces a service known as "Copilot" which does contain other people's code. That the Copilot network contains other peoples code is not in question since it has been demonstrated to output other people's code and Microsoft even added (very limited) filters to detect if it ooutputs other people's code.