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Breaking news: litigant wants to win lawsuit. They probably didn't rigorously track the licensing issue, but I'm pretty sure training a LLM is completely accep

by User23 4y ago

Breaking news: litigant wants to win lawsuit. They probably didn't rigorously track the licensing issue, but I'm pretty sure training a LLM is completely acceptable use of source under Freely licensed code. It would be somewhat amusing though if CoPilot is forced to spit out the license for every piece of code used to develop the derivative work, along with copyright notices and whatever else the licenses may require.

candiddevmike 4y ago
That's the point though, if you recreate the code you need to follow it's license, which typically involves some kind of attribution. Copilot should be forced to spit out a list of all licenses it referenced. That would actually be pretty valuable.
- randombits0 4y ago
  Hold on, there is a difference between “recreate” and “copy”. Copyright only applies to creative expressions. If the code is trivially “recreated”, it’s not particularly creative. Copyrighted content can be used without the holder’s permission under “Fair Use”. Don’t assume all code can be copyrighted. Purely functional expressions are not copyrightable. Code is math. There’s a lot here to unpack.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - User23 4y ago
    By the Curry-Howard correspondence no code should be able to be copyrighted since every program is a formal mathematical proof. However judges aren't usually mathematicians with a background in Computing Science so it's of little consequence.
    - henryfjordan 4y ago
      No algorithm should be copyright-able but your expression of that algorithm should. Programming language choice, variable names, comments, code-style, etc are all creative expressions which are relatively independent of the underlying math.
      - corroclaro 4y ago
        Are they though? They are minor variations in technical language to describe the same mathematical reality.
- kosievdmerwe 4y ago
  Furthermore, the language model itself is clearly a for profit derivative work and so would be subject to the wants of the original copyright owners and it is clearly a derivative work since without the inputs of the copyrighted code in its training it would be different and likely less effective. There's a more interesting question about the copyright status of the code it outputs, since the language model is sort of like a compiler, but also not like a compiler since the output is based on other people's copyrighted code. I feel a lot of people get caught up on the output code and completely ignore the fact that copilot itself is likely a massive copyright violation.
  - supriyo-biswas 4y ago
    To add on to this discussion, the scale matters too, and this is something many people tend not to factor in. Copilot breaks the assumptions about the lossy nature of human memorization, so a lawsuit challenging the merits of the activity is at least warranted.
  - henryfjordan 4y ago
    It is absolutely not clear that an ML model is a derivative work. It might be for-profit but there's good arguments that it is incredibly transformative, and that each individual work the model is trained on is minimally important to the model (if you trained the model on every other document in the training set except the one being sued over, the model would perform very similarly). These are factors which will weigh against the copyright holder.
wonks 4y ago
Wait, are you saying that there is legal precedent for training an LLM with open source code to generate proprietary code?
- User23 4y ago
  That depends. Odds are good some GPL code slipped in somewhere, so using the GPL for the whole thing is an option in that case. And sure you can derive proprietary code from GPL code, so long as you don't publish binaries.
  - shagie 4y ago
    I would point to the Oracle vs. Google Supreme Court decision. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/tech/google-oracle-supreme-court-ruling/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/tech/google-oracle-supreme-co... > Writing for the Court, Breyer said that while it is difficult to apply traditional copyright concepts in the context of software programming, Google copied “only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program.” > A world where Oracle was allowed to enforce a copyright claim, Breyer added, “would risk harm to the public” because it would establish Oracle as a new gatekeeper for software code others wanted to use. The fair use tests that were used in the SCOTUS case, I believe, would fall on the side of "developers using GPT or Copilot to generate code do not generate substantial parts of the code and are below the amount of work needed to show sufficient creativity in writing it." The example is https://horstmann.com/unblog/2010-11-15/NodePolicyImpl.html https://horstmann.com/unblog/2010-11-15/NodePolicyImpl.html If that is not a copyright violation and considered to be fair use, then the code generated by GPT or Copilot likely also falls in the the same bucket. I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's my reading of the tea leaves.
jen20 4y ago
As you describe, a perfectly acceptable outcome is that licenses are respected with respect to attribution and where necessary propagation to derived works.
- jimmaswell 4y ago
  Reading a source then writing your own code with the same ideas in mind isn't a derived work and shouldn't need attribution. It will be a crying shame if Copilot output is mired in unwarranted legal trouble with how much of a productivity booster it is.
  - jen20 4y ago
    Well that is indeed the legal question to be answered. The post I replied to asserted the derivative nature. The ability to copyright-launder via an API will lead to some interesting consequences for sure: I wouldn’t want to be elastic search or mongodb relying on source-available licensing if it comes about.
    - jimmaswell 4y ago
      I think a more appropriate IP model for code is closer to how patents work. The code must be filed and becomes available to/usable by the public after the protection expires.
      - jen20 4y ago
        Maybe that is more appropriate but it is not the reality of today.
  - joxel 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - AlexandrB 4y ago
      And the people who decided to go ahead with implementing it probably need help filing a motion in court. Are you just railing against specialization?
spookie 4y ago
I'm not so sure on whether or not it's completely acceptable to train a LLM under GPL, for example. To bring the point home, reverse engineering efforts follow the clean-room design technique. This is done in an effort to not infringe copyrights. Would love to see this being done on decompiled proprietary code. Training done on it. And released into the wild. But the amount of data necessary, and computing power to do it might not be available for the common person.

by User23 4y ago

candiddevmike 4y ago

That's the point though, if you recreate the code you need to follow it's license, which typically involves some kind of attribution. Copilot should be forced to spit out a list of all licenses it referenced. That would actually be pretty valuable.

randombits0 4y ago
Hold on, there is a difference between “recreate” and “copy”. Copyright only applies to creative expressions. If the code is trivially “recreated”, it’s not particularly creative. Copyrighted content can be used without the holder’s permission under “Fair Use”. Don’t assume all code can be copyrighted. Purely functional expressions are not copyrightable. Code is math. There’s a lot here to unpack.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- User23 4y ago
  By the Curry-Howard correspondence no code should be able to be copyrighted since every program is a formal mathematical proof. However judges aren't usually mathematicians with a background in Computing Science so it's of little consequence.
  - henryfjordan 4y ago
    No algorithm should be copyright-able but your expression of that algorithm should. Programming language choice, variable names, comments, code-style, etc are all creative expressions which are relatively independent of the underlying math.
    - corroclaro 4y ago
      Are they though? They are minor variations in technical language to describe the same mathematical reality.
kosievdmerwe 4y ago
Furthermore, the language model itself is clearly a for profit derivative work and so would be subject to the wants of the original copyright owners and it is clearly a derivative work since without the inputs of the copyrighted code in its training it would be different and likely less effective. There's a more interesting question about the copyright status of the code it outputs, since the language model is sort of like a compiler, but also not like a compiler since the output is based on other people's copyrighted code. I feel a lot of people get caught up on the output code and completely ignore the fact that copilot itself is likely a massive copyright violation.
- supriyo-biswas 4y ago
  To add on to this discussion, the scale matters too, and this is something many people tend not to factor in. Copilot breaks the assumptions about the lossy nature of human memorization, so a lawsuit challenging the merits of the activity is at least warranted.
- henryfjordan 4y ago
  It is absolutely not clear that an ML model is a derivative work. It might be for-profit but there's good arguments that it is incredibly transformative, and that each individual work the model is trained on is minimally important to the model (if you trained the model on every other document in the training set except the one being sued over, the model would perform very similarly). These are factors which will weigh against the copyright holder.

wonks 4y ago

Wait, are you saying that there is legal precedent for training an LLM with open source code to generate proprietary code?

User23 4y ago
That depends. Odds are good some GPL code slipped in somewhere, so using the GPL for the whole thing is an option in that case. And sure you can derive proprietary code from GPL code, so long as you don't publish binaries.
- shagie 4y ago
  I would point to the Oracle vs. Google Supreme Court decision. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/tech/google-oracle-supreme-court-ruling/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/tech/google-oracle-supreme-co... > Writing for the Court, Breyer said that while it is difficult to apply traditional copyright concepts in the context of software programming, Google copied “only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program.” > A world where Oracle was allowed to enforce a copyright claim, Breyer added, “would risk harm to the public” because it would establish Oracle as a new gatekeeper for software code others wanted to use. The fair use tests that were used in the SCOTUS case, I believe, would fall on the side of "developers using GPT or Copilot to generate code do not generate substantial parts of the code and are below the amount of work needed to show sufficient creativity in writing it." The example is https://horstmann.com/unblog/2010-11-15/NodePolicyImpl.html https://horstmann.com/unblog/2010-11-15/NodePolicyImpl.html If that is not a copyright violation and considered to be fair use, then the code generated by GPT or Copilot likely also falls in the the same bucket. I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's my reading of the tea leaves.

jen20 4y ago

As you describe, a perfectly acceptable outcome is that licenses are respected with respect to attribution and where necessary propagation to derived works.

jimmaswell 4y ago
Reading a source then writing your own code with the same ideas in mind isn't a derived work and shouldn't need attribution. It will be a crying shame if Copilot output is mired in unwarranted legal trouble with how much of a productivity booster it is.
- jen20 4y ago
  Well that is indeed the legal question to be answered. The post I replied to asserted the derivative nature. The ability to copyright-launder via an API will lead to some interesting consequences for sure: I wouldn’t want to be elastic search or mongodb relying on source-available licensing if it comes about.
  - jimmaswell 4y ago
    I think a more appropriate IP model for code is closer to how patents work. The code must be filed and becomes available to/usable by the public after the protection expires.
    - jen20 4y ago
      Maybe that is more appropriate but it is not the reality of today.
- joxel 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    And the people who decided to go ahead with implementing it probably need help filing a motion in court. Are you just railing against specialization?

spookie 4y ago

I'm not so sure on whether or not it's completely acceptable to train a LLM under GPL, for example. To bring the point home, reverse engineering efforts follow the clean-room design technique. This is done in an effort to not infringe copyrights. Would love to see this being done on decompiled proprietary code. Training done on it. And released into the wild. But the amount of data necessary, and computing power to do it might not be available for the common person.