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it grabs licence to use your code however they see fit Not your code. Anyone's code that's uploaded to github by any third party. Under open source licenses, t

by tremon 4y ago

it grabs licence to use your code however they see fit Not your code. Anyone's code that's uploaded to github by any third party. Under open source licenses, that's expressly permitted. However, it seems you're arguing that Github is not bound by the license under which they (and their users) acquired the code because of their TOS. How many projects on github are put there by the original copyright holders? Perhaps it's more than 50%, but it certainly is less than 100%. So where is github's legal paperwork that shows that they're only processing the code that's copyrighted by the user who uploaded it, or that they received permission from third-party rights holders that did not agree to their TOS?

marcus_holmes 4y ago
This is a good point. If I vendor my dependencies and upload to Github, does that give them a licence to use that code however they wish? It's interesting, because Github certainly have the right to set whatever terms they like on their website. The dependency authors certainly have the right to set the licence terms on their code, and that gives me the right to vendor their work and include it in my upload to Github. But I, obviously, don't have the right to agree to Github's terms on behalf of the dependency authors. I think the problem here is that Github assumes that everything I upload is my property, and that I have the ability to assign a licence to what I upload. This is not true for any project that vendors its dependencies.
dspillett 4y ago
> So where is github's legal paperwork that shows that they're only processing the code that's copyrighted by the user who uploaded it Under other circumstances they don't need it. But if CoPilot is creating a derivative work including parts of that code without including the licence terms or attribution (as required by many licences) things are far more grey, or possible full black. Some argue that the AI is unaware of the terms so can't be held responsible. Two possible counters for that: 1. it is the licence that gives you the right to use the copyrighted code, if you are unaware of the licence then why assume you have the righ tto use the code? 2. if I found some useful code that happened unbeknownst to me to be from MS, and used it in a way that I wasn't licensed to, and MS noticed, it is a pretty safe bet that they'd state ignorance of the copyright terms doesn't mean you can't be held to them. Or another angle: the tool is allowing, even encouraging, people to use code or other materials in a way that infringes copyright (again: you don't have the right to use the code under most licences unless you give correct attribution and such) – the very conditions often stated as reasons for trying to ban other tools. Plus of course the general argument: if this is entirely a non-issue, why is no Windows, Office, or SQL Server code in the training set? Surely they are great examples of how to do things to train the AI with?

by tremon 4y ago

marcus_holmes 4y ago

This is a good point. If I vendor my dependencies and upload to Github, does that give them a licence to use that code however they wish? It's interesting, because Github certainly have the right to set whatever terms they like on their website. The dependency authors certainly have the right to set the licence terms on their code, and that gives me the right to vendor their work and include it in my upload to Github. But I, obviously, don't have the right to agree to Github's terms on behalf of the dependency authors. I think the problem here is that Github assumes that everything I upload is my property, and that I have the ability to assign a licence to what I upload. This is not true for any project that vendors its dependencies.

dspillett 4y ago

> So where is github's legal paperwork that shows that they're only processing the code that's copyrighted by the user who uploaded it Under other circumstances they don't need it. But if CoPilot is creating a derivative work including parts of that code without including the licence terms or attribution (as required by many licences) things are far more grey, or possible full black. Some argue that the AI is unaware of the terms so can't be held responsible. Two possible counters for that: 1. it is the licence that gives you the right to use the copyrighted code, if you are unaware of the licence then why assume you have the righ tto use the code? 2. if I found some useful code that happened unbeknownst to me to be from MS, and used it in a way that I wasn't licensed to, and MS noticed, it is a pretty safe bet that they'd state ignorance of the copyright terms doesn't mean you can't be held to them. Or another angle: the tool is allowing, even encouraging, people to use code or other materials in a way that infringes copyright (again: you don't have the right to use the code under most licences unless you give correct attribution and such) – the very conditions often stated as reasons for trying to ban other tools. Plus of course the general argument: if this is entirely a non-issue, why is no Windows, Office, or SQL Server code in the training set? Surely they are great examples of how to do things to train the AI with?