4 ms·

As well, Google is, because of these things, somewhat acting as a library. An libraries are very special entities.

by b112 4y ago

toomuchtodo 4y ago
What if a library builds AI models from the content they host? The Internet Archive, for example.
kmeisthax 4y ago
Not really. Google won because Google Books was not actually a new concept; someone else had already built a book search engine the same way Google did, also got sued by the Authors Guild, and also prevailed. The only thing different about Google Books was that it'd give you two pages worth of excerpt out of the book. So it was very easy for a court to extend the fair use logic that they had already weaved into the law. I still think "training is fair use" still has a leg to stand on, though. But it doesn't save GitHub Copilot because they're not merely training a model; they're selling access to its outputs and telling people they have "full commercial rights" to its outputs (i.e. sublicensing). Fair use is not transitive; if I make 100 Google Books searches to get all the pages out of a book, I don't suddenly own the book. There is no "copyright laundry" here.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Precisely, that is the key point.
- gnramires 4y ago
  > I still think "training is fair use" still has a leg to stand on, though If that's the case, we need to serious re-consider how we reward Open Source as a society (I think that would be fantastic anyway!) -- we have people producing knowledge and others profiting directly from this material, producing new content and new code that's incompatible with the original license. You make GPL code, a make an AI that learns from GPL code, shouldn't its output be GPL licensed as well? I think meanwhile the most reasonable solution is that an AI should always produce content compatible with the training material licenses. So if you want to use GPL training sets, you can only use that to create GPL-compatible code. If you use public domain (or e.g. 0BSD?) training sets, you can produce any code I guess.
  - nradov 4y ago
    If open source code authors (and other content creators) don't want their IP to be used in AI training data sets then they can simply change the license terms to prohibit that use. And if they really want to control how their IP is used then they shouldn't host it on GitHub in the first place. Of course Microsoft is going to look for ways to monetize that data.
    - b112 4y ago
      And if they really want to control how their IP is used then they shouldn't host it on GitHub in the first place No. It's called copyright, it is enforceable, and that's the control. GPL source code is available everywhere, in all formats, in textbooks, on CDs, on websites, but it is still gpl. And Microsoft doesn't get to scrub the license.
    - b3morales 4y ago
      > they can simply change the license terms to prohibit that use GitHub's argument* is not that they're following the license but that the license does not apply to their use. So they would continue to ignore any provision that says they can't use the material for training. Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27740001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27740001 Moving off GitHub is a better step at a practical level. But again they claim the license doesn't matter, so even if it's hosted publicly elsewhere they would (presumably) maintain that they can still scoop it up. It just becomes more work, for them, to do so. *Which is completely wrong in my opinion, for the record
  - b112 4y ago
    You make GPL code, a make an AI that learns from GPL code, shouldn't its output be GPL licensed as well? I think, for the desired outcome to occur, you should instead ask: You write close sourced code, then a make an AI that learns from that code, shouldn't its output be licensed as well? Ask the above, and suddenly Microsoft will agree.
    - skissane 4y ago
- naasking 4y ago
  > But it doesn't save GitHub Copilot because they're not merely training a model; they're selling access to its outputs and telling people they have "full commercial rights" to its outputs (i.e. sublicensing). But if you read the source code of 100 different projects to learn how they worked and then someone hired you to write a program that uses this knowledge, that should be legit. I'm not sure if the law currently makes a distinction between learning vs. remixing, and if Copilot would qualify as learning.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    That's not necessarily true at all. There's even techniques designed to demonstrably avoid such knowledge-contamination. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
    - naasking 4y ago
      Yes, it will sometimes depend on the unique qualities of the code. For instance, if you learned a new sorting algorithm from a C repo, and then wrote a comparable imperative solution in OCaml, that might be a derivative work. But if you wrote a purely functional equivalent of that algorithm, I don't think that could be considered a derivative work.
    - corysama 4y ago
      That kind of legal ass-covering is expedient when you are going to explicitly reproduce someone else’s source-available work. It’s cheaper in that case to go through the whole clean room hassle than to risk getting into an intractable argument in court about how your code that does exactly the same thing as someone else’s code came to resemble the other people’s code so much. But, for the general case, the argument still stands. I have looked at GPL code before. I might have even learned something from it. Is my brain infected? Am I required by law to license everything I ever make as GPL for the remainder of my days?
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
And Google kept the copyright notices and attributions; probably not super relevant, but it's a difference between the two cases. I mean in essence Github is a library; they did have a license to a point to do with the code as they pleased, but they then started to create a derivative work in the form of an AI, without correctly crediting the source materials. I mean I think they made a gamble on it; as far as I'm aware, AI training sets were yet unchallenged in a court of law, so legally not fully defined yet. These lawsuits - and the ones (if any) aimed at the image generators, using CC artwork from e.g. artstation - will lay the legal groundwork for future AI / ML development.
ghaff 4y ago
Libraries are really not very special. They mostly exist on the basis of first-sale doctrine and have to subscribe to electronic services like everyone else. Entities like the Internet Archive skate by (at least before their book lending stunt during COVID) by being non-profit and bending over backwards to respect even retrospective robots.txt instructions, meaning that it's not really worth suing them given they'll mostly do what you ask anyway. But I guarantee you that if I set up a best comic strips of all time library I'll probably be in court.

As well, Google is, because of these things, somewhat acting as a library. An libraries are very special entities.

by b112 4y ago

As well, Google is, because of these things, somewhat acting as a library. An libraries are very special entities.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

What if a library builds AI models from the content they host? The Internet Archive, for example.

kmeisthax 4y ago

Not really. Google won because Google Books was not actually a new concept; someone else had already built a book search engine the same way Google did, also got sued by the Authors Guild, and also prevailed. The only thing different about Google Books was that it'd give you two pages worth of excerpt out of the book. So it was very easy for a court to extend the fair use logic that they had already weaved into the law. I still think "training is fair use" still has a leg to stand on, though. But it doesn't save GitHub Copilot because they're not merely training a model; they're selling access to its outputs and telling people they have "full commercial rights" to its outputs (i.e. sublicensing). Fair use is not transitive; if I make 100 Google Books searches to get all the pages out of a book, I don't suddenly own the book. There is no "copyright laundry" here.

jacquesm 4y ago
Precisely, that is the key point.
gnramires 4y ago
> I still think "training is fair use" still has a leg to stand on, though If that's the case, we need to serious re-consider how we reward Open Source as a society (I think that would be fantastic anyway!) -- we have people producing knowledge and others profiting directly from this material, producing new content and new code that's incompatible with the original license. You make GPL code, a make an AI that learns from GPL code, shouldn't its output be GPL licensed as well? I think meanwhile the most reasonable solution is that an AI should always produce content compatible with the training material licenses. So if you want to use GPL training sets, you can only use that to create GPL-compatible code. If you use public domain (or e.g. 0BSD?) training sets, you can produce any code I guess.
- nradov 4y ago
  If open source code authors (and other content creators) don't want their IP to be used in AI training data sets then they can simply change the license terms to prohibit that use. And if they really want to control how their IP is used then they shouldn't host it on GitHub in the first place. Of course Microsoft is going to look for ways to monetize that data.
  - b112 4y ago
    And if they really want to control how their IP is used then they shouldn't host it on GitHub in the first place No. It's called copyright, it is enforceable, and that's the control. GPL source code is available everywhere, in all formats, in textbooks, on CDs, on websites, but it is still gpl. And Microsoft doesn't get to scrub the license.
  - b3morales 4y ago
    > they can simply change the license terms to prohibit that use GitHub's argument* is not that they're following the license but that the license does not apply to their use. So they would continue to ignore any provision that says they can't use the material for training. Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27740001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27740001 Moving off GitHub is a better step at a practical level. But again they claim the license doesn't matter, so even if it's hosted publicly elsewhere they would (presumably) maintain that they can still scoop it up. It just becomes more work, for them, to do so. *Which is completely wrong in my opinion, for the record
- b112 4y ago
  You make GPL code, a make an AI that learns from GPL code, shouldn't its output be GPL licensed as well? I think, for the desired outcome to occur, you should instead ask: You write close sourced code, then a make an AI that learns from that code, shouldn't its output be licensed as well? Ask the above, and suddenly Microsoft will agree.
  - skissane 4y ago
naasking 4y ago
> But it doesn't save GitHub Copilot because they're not merely training a model; they're selling access to its outputs and telling people they have "full commercial rights" to its outputs (i.e. sublicensing). But if you read the source code of 100 different projects to learn how they worked and then someone hired you to write a program that uses this knowledge, that should be legit. I'm not sure if the law currently makes a distinction between learning vs. remixing, and if Copilot would qualify as learning.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  That's not necessarily true at all. There's even techniques designed to demonstrably avoid such knowledge-contamination. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
  - naasking 4y ago
    Yes, it will sometimes depend on the unique qualities of the code. For instance, if you learned a new sorting algorithm from a C repo, and then wrote a comparable imperative solution in OCaml, that might be a derivative work. But if you wrote a purely functional equivalent of that algorithm, I don't think that could be considered a derivative work.
  - corysama 4y ago
    That kind of legal ass-covering is expedient when you are going to explicitly reproduce someone else’s source-available work. It’s cheaper in that case to go through the whole clean room hassle than to risk getting into an intractable argument in court about how your code that does exactly the same thing as someone else’s code came to resemble the other people’s code so much. But, for the general case, the argument still stands. I have looked at GPL code before. I might have even learned something from it. Is my brain infected? Am I required by law to license everything I ever make as GPL for the remainder of my days?

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

And Google kept the copyright notices and attributions; probably not super relevant, but it's a difference between the two cases. I mean in essence Github is a library; they did have a license to a point to do with the code as they pleased, but they then started to create a derivative work in the form of an AI, without correctly crediting the source materials. I mean I think they made a gamble on it; as far as I'm aware, AI training sets were yet unchallenged in a court of law, so legally not fully defined yet. These lawsuits - and the ones (if any) aimed at the image generators, using CC artwork from e.g. artstation - will lay the legal groundwork for future AI / ML development.

ghaff 4y ago

Libraries are really not very special. They mostly exist on the basis of first-sale doctrine and have to subscribe to electronic services like everyone else. Entities like the Internet Archive skate by (at least before their book lending stunt during COVID) by being non-profit and bending over backwards to respect even retrospective robots.txt instructions, meaning that it's not really worth suing them given they'll mostly do what you ask anyway. But I guarantee you that if I set up a best comic strips of all time library I'll probably be in court.