5 ms·

OpenAI Terms of service forbid training competitor models via their ML outputs (LoRa alpaca laundering is probably not allowed for commercial use).

space_fountain 4y ago
Where exactly does it do that? I looked a bit and could t find it, but likely I was just wrong
short_sells_poo 4y ago
I love it how they don't want others to use their model output but they have no qualms about training their model on the copyrighted works of others? Isn't this a stunning level of hypocrisy?
saurik 4y ago
So, to verify, are you claiming that if someone added a similar clause to their source code and then GitHub went ahead and trained Copilot against it, that would be an issue?
- bloppe 4y ago
  You relinquish all licensing rights when you upload your code to GitHub. Microsoft can do whatever they want with it. That's in their ToS, which you have to agree to when you make an account. Normally, only affirmatively accepted ToS are enforceable, so just putting a clause into your license doesn't work (unless it's a copyright, which doesn't require consent).
  - flir 4y ago
    > You relinquish all licensing rights when you upload your code to GitHub What now? Seriously? I found this. Section D4. "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." "as necessary to provide the Service" seems critical.
    - bloppe 4y ago
      "Improving the service over time" can do a lot of heavy lifting, definitely including training Copilot.
    - commoner 4y ago
      Also, section D3 of the GitHub Terms of Service says: > You retain ownership of and responsibility for Your Content. and section D4 says: > This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content. It also does not grant GitHub the right to otherwise distribute or use Your Content outside of our provision of the Service, except that as part of the right to archive Your Content, GitHub may permit our partners to store and archive Your Content in public repositories in connection with the GitHub Arctic Code Vault and GitHub Archive Program. There is nothing in the terms that requires the GitHub user to relinquish all licensing rights. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...
      - bloppe 4y ago
        The clauses always have a trap door: "[outside of] our provision of the Service" means they can do anything as long as it's a service they provide. Under definitions: The “Service” refers to the applications, software, products, and services provided by GitHub, including any Beta Previews.
        commoner 4y ago
        I think there's a misunderstanding over what the word "relinquish" means. The terms make clear that uploading code to GitHub gives GitHub 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" while the code is hosted on GitHub. However, that's not the same thing as relinquishing (giving up) licensing rights to GitHub. The uploader still retains those rights, and there is nothing in the terms that says otherwise.
        4y ago
  - saurik 4y ago
    So, to verify, are you claiming it would not be allowed for you to upload my otherwise-open-source code (code I do not myself host at GitHub, but which was reasonably popular / important code) to GitHub?
    - bloppe 4y ago
      Yep. It's in their ToS: If you're posting anything you did not create yourself or do not own the rights to, you agree that you are responsible for any Content you post; that you will only submit Content that you have the right to post; and that you will fully comply with any third party licenses relating to Content you post. I suppose this means if I upload your stuff to GitHub, and you sue GitHub, then GitHub would be able to somehow deflect liability onto me.
      - commoner 4y ago
        That doesn't make sense. For example, GPLv3 allows anyone to redistribute the software's source code if the license is intact: > You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html If GitHub then uses the source code in a way that violates the license, there is no provision in the GitHub terms of service that would allow GitHub to deflect legal liability to the GitHub user who uploaded the program. The uploader satisfied the requirements of GPLv3, and GitHub would be the only party in violation.
        8note 4y ago
        Uploading is granting GitHub a license separate from the gpl license. If you can't actually grant that separate license, you're misrepresenting your ownership and license to that code
vagabund 4y ago
Google has no contract with OpenAI though. They used a third party site to scrape conversations. If the outputs themselves are not copyrighted, and they never agreed to the terms of service, it should be fine, right? Albeit unethical and embarrassing.
- paxys 4y ago
  Hardly unethical, considering OpenAI is doing exactly this.
  - vagabund 4y ago
    You can quibble about the ethics of web scraping for ML in general but I think you're conflating issues. OpenAI and Google both scour the web for human-generated content. What Google cares about here is the learnings from OpenAI's proprietary RLHF dataset, for which they had to contract a large sum of human labelers. Finding a roundabout way to extract the value of a direct competitor's purpose-built, costly data feels meaningfully different from scraping the web in general as an input to a transformative use.
    - paxys 4y ago
      > OpenAI and Google both scour the web for human-generated content OpenAI and Google both scour the web for content, period. That content could be human generated or AI generated or a mix of the two. Neither company is respecting copyright or terms of service of every individual bit of data collected. Neither company cares how much effort was put into creating the data, whether humans were paid to do it, or whatever else. So there really isn't that much difference between the two. In fact I can guarantee that there was some Google-generated content within OpenAI's training data.
      - vkou 4y ago
        And herein is the main problem of AI. Its creators consume knowledge from the commons, and give nothing free and unencumbered back. It's like the guy who never brings anything to the potluck, but after everyone finishes eating, he boxes up the leftovers, and starts selling them out of a food cart.
shmatt 4y ago
breaking terms of service is not punishable in any way. Facebook tried and lost in court
- paxys 4y ago
  Correction – breaking terms of service that you have not explicitly agreed to is not punishable in any way. A site cannot enforce a "by using this site you agree to..." clause deep inside some license page that visitors are generally unaware of. If you violate an agreement that you willingly chose to enter, however, you will likely be found liable for it.
bloppe 4y ago
The recent HiQ vs LinkedIn case would seem to make this ToS unenforceable, unless Google actually created a user account on ShareGPT and affirmatively accepted the terms. "Acceptance by default" does not count, and I can easily browse ShareGPT without affirmatively accepting any ToS, without which web scraping is totally legal.
worldofmatthew 4y ago
Are the TOS even enforceable is AI content can't be copyrighted?
Certhas 4y ago
This is really hilarious. Authors and artists never gave permission to use their work to train AI models either... Not legally the same situation, but ethically close enough.

space_fountain 4y ago

Where exactly does it do that? I looked a bit and could t find it, but likely I was just wrong

short_sells_poo 4y ago

I love it how they don't want others to use their model output but they have no qualms about training their model on the copyrighted works of others? Isn't this a stunning level of hypocrisy?

saurik 4y ago

So, to verify, are you claiming that if someone added a similar clause to their source code and then GitHub went ahead and trained Copilot against it, that would be an issue?

bloppe 4y ago
You relinquish all licensing rights when you upload your code to GitHub. Microsoft can do whatever they want with it. That's in their ToS, which you have to agree to when you make an account. Normally, only affirmatively accepted ToS are enforceable, so just putting a clause into your license doesn't work (unless it's a copyright, which doesn't require consent).
- flir 4y ago
  > You relinquish all licensing rights when you upload your code to GitHub What now? Seriously? I found this. Section D4. "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." "as necessary to provide the Service" seems critical.
  - bloppe 4y ago
    "Improving the service over time" can do a lot of heavy lifting, definitely including training Copilot.
  - commoner 4y ago
    Also, section D3 of the GitHub Terms of Service says: > You retain ownership of and responsibility for Your Content. and section D4 says: > This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content. It also does not grant GitHub the right to otherwise distribute or use Your Content outside of our provision of the Service, except that as part of the right to archive Your Content, GitHub may permit our partners to store and archive Your Content in public repositories in connection with the GitHub Arctic Code Vault and GitHub Archive Program. There is nothing in the terms that requires the GitHub user to relinquish all licensing rights. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...
    - bloppe 4y ago
      The clauses always have a trap door: "[outside of] our provision of the Service" means they can do anything as long as it's a service they provide. Under definitions: The “Service” refers to the applications, software, products, and services provided by GitHub, including any Beta Previews.
      - commoner 4y ago
        I think there's a misunderstanding over what the word "relinquish" means. The terms make clear that uploading code to GitHub gives GitHub 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" while the code is hosted on GitHub. However, that's not the same thing as relinquishing (giving up) licensing rights to GitHub. The uploader still retains those rights, and there is nothing in the terms that says otherwise.
        4y ago
- saurik 4y ago
  So, to verify, are you claiming it would not be allowed for you to upload my otherwise-open-source code (code I do not myself host at GitHub, but which was reasonably popular / important code) to GitHub?
  - bloppe 4y ago
    Yep. It's in their ToS: If you're posting anything you did not create yourself or do not own the rights to, you agree that you are responsible for any Content you post; that you will only submit Content that you have the right to post; and that you will fully comply with any third party licenses relating to Content you post. I suppose this means if I upload your stuff to GitHub, and you sue GitHub, then GitHub would be able to somehow deflect liability onto me.
    - commoner 4y ago
      That doesn't make sense. For example, GPLv3 allows anyone to redistribute the software's source code if the license is intact: > You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html If GitHub then uses the source code in a way that violates the license, there is no provision in the GitHub terms of service that would allow GitHub to deflect legal liability to the GitHub user who uploaded the program. The uploader satisfied the requirements of GPLv3, and GitHub would be the only party in violation.
      - 8note 4y ago
        Uploading is granting GitHub a license separate from the gpl license. If you can't actually grant that separate license, you're misrepresenting your ownership and license to that code

vagabund 4y ago

Google has no contract with OpenAI though. They used a third party site to scrape conversations. If the outputs themselves are not copyrighted, and they never agreed to the terms of service, it should be fine, right? Albeit unethical and embarrassing.

paxys 4y ago
Hardly unethical, considering OpenAI is doing exactly this.
- vagabund 4y ago
  You can quibble about the ethics of web scraping for ML in general but I think you're conflating issues. OpenAI and Google both scour the web for human-generated content. What Google cares about here is the learnings from OpenAI's proprietary RLHF dataset, for which they had to contract a large sum of human labelers. Finding a roundabout way to extract the value of a direct competitor's purpose-built, costly data feels meaningfully different from scraping the web in general as an input to a transformative use.
  - paxys 4y ago
    > OpenAI and Google both scour the web for human-generated content OpenAI and Google both scour the web for content, period. That content could be human generated or AI generated or a mix of the two. Neither company is respecting copyright or terms of service of every individual bit of data collected. Neither company cares how much effort was put into creating the data, whether humans were paid to do it, or whatever else. So there really isn't that much difference between the two. In fact I can guarantee that there was some Google-generated content within OpenAI's training data.
    - vkou 4y ago
      And herein is the main problem of AI. Its creators consume knowledge from the commons, and give nothing free and unencumbered back. It's like the guy who never brings anything to the potluck, but after everyone finishes eating, he boxes up the leftovers, and starts selling them out of a food cart.

shmatt 4y ago

breaking terms of service is not punishable in any way. Facebook tried and lost in court

paxys 4y ago
Correction – breaking terms of service that you have not explicitly agreed to is not punishable in any way. A site cannot enforce a "by using this site you agree to..." clause deep inside some license page that visitors are generally unaware of. If you violate an agreement that you willingly chose to enter, however, you will likely be found liable for it.

bloppe 4y ago

The recent HiQ vs LinkedIn case would seem to make this ToS unenforceable, unless Google actually created a user account on ShareGPT and affirmatively accepted the terms. "Acceptance by default" does not count, and I can easily browse ShareGPT without affirmatively accepting any ToS, without which web scraping is totally legal.

worldofmatthew 4y ago

Are the TOS even enforceable is AI content can't be copyrighted?

Certhas 4y ago

This is really hilarious. Authors and artists never gave permission to use their work to train AI models either... Not legally the same situation, but ethically close enough.