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I’m skeptical of this interpretation since it seems to imply that you could upload copyrighted code and now GitHub has a license to do whatever they want with t

by yladiz 4y ago

I’m skeptical of this interpretation since it seems to imply that you could upload copyrighted code and now GitHub has a license to do whatever they want with the code, which is obviously not true. An example would be someone uploading Microsoft Windows source code illegally, and GitHub can’t just use it because it was uploaded to their service. I would argue that this then extends to CoPilot, in that just because they have a license to host it, they don’t have a license to do whatever they want with it.

judge2020 4y ago
The license is quite limited, but does include "improving the service over time" which might be their key to CoPilot being okayed by their legal team, at least originally: > 4. License Grant to Us We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#3-ownership-of-content-right-to-post-and-license-grants https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...
- yladiz 4y ago
  If that is in fact how CoPilot got the green light from their legal team and what the case will eventually hinge upon, I really wonder if the argument that CoPilot is part of the "service" will hold up. I can imagine a judge or jury not being convinced here because the majority of the paragraph is clearly about the general use of the service (parsing it into a search index so you can search in your repo; making backups so that service isn't disrupted in the case of some server failure; share it with others so that others can access the content you uploaded). In other words, if this is what they argue is the reason CoPilot is okay, I can imagine plaintiff's lawyers able to successfully argue against it on the basis that CoPilot isn't really part of the normal service like e.g. the repos are and the argument that it could fall into the "otherwise analyze" statement is flimsy as it's not clear what analyze is defined as and it's arguable that adding it to an AI training model is not the same as or similar to indexing for search. I suspect that the main argument will hinge not on the permission though, but rather if the use of code that is copyrighted in an AI model is transformative enough to fall under fair use. Obviously it's to be decided but I would imagine that because it wasn't a human transforming the code and/or hand selecting the code to put into the AI model, that it won't be considered transformative and therefore the use of the code doesn't fall under fair use. I'm very curious how this case will play out.

by yladiz 4y ago

judge2020 4y ago

The license is quite limited, but does include "improving the service over time" which might be their key to CoPilot being okayed by their legal team, at least originally: > 4. License Grant to Us We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#3-ownership-of-content-right-to-post-and-license-grants https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

yladiz 4y ago
If that is in fact how CoPilot got the green light from their legal team and what the case will eventually hinge upon, I really wonder if the argument that CoPilot is part of the "service" will hold up. I can imagine a judge or jury not being convinced here because the majority of the paragraph is clearly about the general use of the service (parsing it into a search index so you can search in your repo; making backups so that service isn't disrupted in the case of some server failure; share it with others so that others can access the content you uploaded). In other words, if this is what they argue is the reason CoPilot is okay, I can imagine plaintiff's lawyers able to successfully argue against it on the basis that CoPilot isn't really part of the normal service like e.g. the repos are and the argument that it could fall into the "otherwise analyze" statement is flimsy as it's not clear what analyze is defined as and it's arguable that adding it to an AI training model is not the same as or similar to indexing for search. I suspect that the main argument will hinge not on the permission though, but rather if the use of code that is copyrighted in an AI model is transformative enough to fall under fair use. Obviously it's to be decided but I would imagine that because it wasn't a human transforming the code and/or hand selecting the code to put into the AI model, that it won't be considered transformative and therefore the use of the code doesn't fall under fair use. I'm very curious how this case will play out.