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Someone asked me to pay for a team subscription for Copilot. As I'm CTO (and thus legally responsible for those agreements that you normally just click through

by dijit 4y ago

Someone asked me to pay for a team subscription for Copilot. As I'm CTO (and thus legally responsible for those agreements that you normally just click through); I read the terms of service, and they do not actually grant license to the code. They say in very clear terms: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING SUGGESTIONS. So, as I don't want to encourage people to think that they can simply copy over copilot solutions I decided against buying access to it, even though I am quite certain it would have boosted developer productivity. (and goodwill, people like shiny!). I was also a little concerned because it is additionally the case that a AI is confidently incorrect sometimes, so there are suggestions that have subtle and hard to see bugs. I really don't really want to hear that a bug is caused by AI, since from my perspective the whole point of you being paid a handsome salary comparable to a doctor is because you take responsibility for the code you write; which is actually somewhat in-line with the Copilot license agreement[0] [0]: https://github.com/customer-terms/github-copilot-product-specific-terms https://github.com/customer-terms/github-copilot-product-spe...

tubs 4y ago
Do you also disallow your employees from reading github, stack overflow, or other sources of code?
- dijit 4y ago
  I disallow copying of copyrighted code into our product repositories unless the license is clear, I have even reached out to people to directly license copyrighted software, or for them to relicense their public AGPL/GPL license (for a fee). To answer your statement directly: 1) StackOverflow submissions are CC-BY-SA, so if a person copies' code from there, even if it's copyrighted you can consider it good faith and remove the offending code from your product. This is actually a licensing nightmare but the current situation is the same as when the music industry accidentally uses an unlicensed sample and there's no current reason to consider it otherwise. 2) Github has a neat repository licensing feature (LICENSE) so you can easily tell what repo has what, not having a license file means the repository is fully copyrighted by default by the way; if we bundle GPL code then we would have to open source our game, which is not going to happen, so no you're not allowed to just copy code, but you can take inspiration; which is what Copilot is saying you should do in their terms *NOT COPY CODE VERBATIM*. Ultimately: Software licensing is a joke to you because it doesn't really concern you, however it concerns me as it is quite literally part of my job to protect the company from being sued over doing something wrong here.
  - tubs 4y ago
    Right. So it's up to you to educate your developers to not copy code from sources that have licenses incompatible with your project. Much the same as educating the same developers that "YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING SUGGESTIONS" from copilot. I do not see any difference here. It's an extremely personal attack to claim software licencing is a joke to me. You have zero context on the work I do professionally and as open source. I'd appreciate it if you could limit your arguments to not include personal insults.
  - YetAnotherNick 4y ago
    What if someone copied a GPL code to stackoverflow? It wouldn't even be hard to look for examples like this. In situations like this, my opinion is to just assume that license will first bite big guy, so I am willing to play by the fire if someone who is 10x bigger than me are doing the same.
- xdennis 4y ago
  Reading Stack Overflow doesn't send my code to Stack Overflow.
AlexandrB 4y ago
There's also another risk, which is that copilot generated code may not be copyrightable[1]. I'm not sure how that would play out as part of a large codebase, but something to watch closely. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-copyright-office-says-some-ai-assisted-works-may-be-copyrighted-2023-03-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-copyright-office-says-so... > The office reiterated Wednesday that copyright protection depends on the amount of human creativity involved, and that the most popular AI systems likely do not create copyrightable work.
- brookst 4y ago
  Isn’t software copyrighted as a whole, not line-by-line?
  - belorn 4y ago
    As the linked article describe it: "the office said copyright protection depends on whether AI's contributions are "the result of mechanical reproduction," such as in response to text prompts, or if they reflect the author's "own mental conception."" So if we take that into software development, the text input that the developer gave copilot may be protected under copyright but the output of copilot may not. If the developer arrange or modify the output, then those arrangements and modifications can also be protected under copyright. To me that means that during copyright cases there will be a much bigger burden on the plaintiff to prove that they own copyright in any specific situation, and that the infringement is done on those parts that is covered by copyright and not just the output of the copilot algorithm. Simply claiming authorship to all the code will no longer be enough.
    - brookst 4y ago
      I don't think there's any precedent for copyright to be applied partially, with some of a work covered and some not. Are you proposing that copyright will change to be line-by-lien, with each one covered (or not) depending on how it was generated?
      - 4y ago
snickerbockers 4y ago
> They say in very clear terms: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING SUGGESTIONS. I really hope they get reamed in court over this. When Microsoft's servers running Microsoft's AI transmit somebody else's code covered under GPL (or any other FOSS license with attribution, like BSD) to a third party without replicating the license statement or even providing proper attribution, Microsoft has absolutely violated the GPL. They can't get around that by waving a paper that the third party signed. This reminds me of those dump trucks you see with stickers saying that the owner will not pay for damage caused by falling debris. Absolutely laughable attempt at dodging legal responsibility for an act that they are absolutely responsible for. I'm glad execs like you are taking this seriously instead of going along with M$' flagrant disregard for FOSS licenses. I hope there's a lot more corporate pushback for trying to sell a tool that can poison their customers' codebase with code stolen from copyleft projects. As an aside, I find it very telling that they trained this on other peoples' code instead of their flagship products like Windows, Office, VS, etc. I also remember seeing a few years ago an article on HN about M$ not allowing its employees to use github internally because they were worried about accidental IP leaks; I wonder if this is because they were already planning copilot?
coldtea 4y ago
>* I read the terms of service, and they do not actually grant license to the code. They say in very clear terms: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING SUGGESTIONS.* That doesn't exactly mean they don't grant licensing in the sense that they retain the license to use the code they produce. That means there's no licensing, and any issue others have with your code infringing on third party licenses is on you.

by dijit 4y ago

tubs 4y ago

Do you also disallow your employees from reading github, stack overflow, or other sources of code?

dijit 4y ago
I disallow copying of copyrighted code into our product repositories unless the license is clear, I have even reached out to people to directly license copyrighted software, or for them to relicense their public AGPL/GPL license (for a fee). To answer your statement directly: 1) StackOverflow submissions are CC-BY-SA, so if a person copies' code from there, even if it's copyrighted you can consider it good faith and remove the offending code from your product. This is actually a licensing nightmare but the current situation is the same as when the music industry accidentally uses an unlicensed sample and there's no current reason to consider it otherwise. 2) Github has a neat repository licensing feature (LICENSE) so you can easily tell what repo has what, not having a license file means the repository is fully copyrighted by default by the way; if we bundle GPL code then we would have to open source our game, which is not going to happen, so no you're not allowed to just copy code, but you can take inspiration; which is what Copilot is saying you should do in their terms *NOT COPY CODE VERBATIM*. Ultimately: Software licensing is a joke to you because it doesn't really concern you, however it concerns me as it is quite literally part of my job to protect the company from being sued over doing something wrong here.
- tubs 4y ago
  Right. So it's up to you to educate your developers to not copy code from sources that have licenses incompatible with your project. Much the same as educating the same developers that "YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING SUGGESTIONS" from copilot. I do not see any difference here. It's an extremely personal attack to claim software licencing is a joke to me. You have zero context on the work I do professionally and as open source. I'd appreciate it if you could limit your arguments to not include personal insults.
- YetAnotherNick 4y ago
  What if someone copied a GPL code to stackoverflow? It wouldn't even be hard to look for examples like this. In situations like this, my opinion is to just assume that license will first bite big guy, so I am willing to play by the fire if someone who is 10x bigger than me are doing the same.
xdennis 4y ago
Reading Stack Overflow doesn't send my code to Stack Overflow.

AlexandrB 4y ago

There's also another risk, which is that copilot generated code may not be copyrightable[1]. I'm not sure how that would play out as part of a large codebase, but something to watch closely. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-copyright-office-says-some-ai-assisted-works-may-be-copyrighted-2023-03-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-copyright-office-says-so... > The office reiterated Wednesday that copyright protection depends on the amount of human creativity involved, and that the most popular AI systems likely do not create copyrightable work.

brookst 4y ago
Isn’t software copyrighted as a whole, not line-by-line?
- belorn 4y ago
  As the linked article describe it: "the office said copyright protection depends on whether AI's contributions are "the result of mechanical reproduction," such as in response to text prompts, or if they reflect the author's "own mental conception."" So if we take that into software development, the text input that the developer gave copilot may be protected under copyright but the output of copilot may not. If the developer arrange or modify the output, then those arrangements and modifications can also be protected under copyright. To me that means that during copyright cases there will be a much bigger burden on the plaintiff to prove that they own copyright in any specific situation, and that the infringement is done on those parts that is covered by copyright and not just the output of the copilot algorithm. Simply claiming authorship to all the code will no longer be enough.
  - brookst 4y ago
    I don't think there's any precedent for copyright to be applied partially, with some of a work covered and some not. Are you proposing that copyright will change to be line-by-lien, with each one covered (or not) depending on how it was generated?
    - 4y ago

snickerbockers 4y ago

> They say in very clear terms: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING SUGGESTIONS. I really hope they get reamed in court over this. When Microsoft's servers running Microsoft's AI transmit somebody else's code covered under GPL (or any other FOSS license with attribution, like BSD) to a third party without replicating the license statement or even providing proper attribution, Microsoft has absolutely violated the GPL. They can't get around that by waving a paper that the third party signed. This reminds me of those dump trucks you see with stickers saying that the owner will not pay for damage caused by falling debris. Absolutely laughable attempt at dodging legal responsibility for an act that they are absolutely responsible for. I'm glad execs like you are taking this seriously instead of going along with M$' flagrant disregard for FOSS licenses. I hope there's a lot more corporate pushback for trying to sell a tool that can poison their customers' codebase with code stolen from copyleft projects. As an aside, I find it very telling that they trained this on other peoples' code instead of their flagship products like Windows, Office, VS, etc. I also remember seeing a few years ago an article on HN about M$ not allowing its employees to use github internally because they were worried about accidental IP leaks; I wonder if this is because they were already planning copilot?

coldtea 4y ago

>* I read the terms of service, and they do not actually grant license to the code. They say in very clear terms: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING SUGGESTIONS.* That doesn't exactly mean they don't grant licensing in the sense that they retain the license to use the code they produce. That means there's no licensing, and any issue others have with your code infringing on third party licenses is on you.