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What happens if I create a 10 lines function character by character identical to some proprietary or GPLled piece of code, without ever looking at that code nor
by pmontra 4y ago
What happens if I create a 10 lines function character by character identical to some proprietary or GPLled piece of code, without ever looking at that code nor knowing that it existed?
I expect that the copyright holders could reach to me, tell me that my code is identical to theirs, believe or not that I independently created the same code, and at least ask me to stop distributing it.
Of course
t += total(e)
is easier to defend than
monthlyTotal += dailyTotal(expenses)
because the chances that I didn't copy their code get slimmer and slimmer as the names of the identifiers and the structure of the code get more complex.
If I actually looked at their code, it would be wiser from me to at least change the names, maybe also a little bit the structure of the code. That's the difference between being inspired by something and copying it.
TL;DR: if Copilot generates a copy, it's a copy.
- gedy 4y agoI know the law doesn't work this way, but wonder if code that can be "learned" this easily should really be copyrightable, etc. These LLMs don't keep a copy of some code to paste in verbatim.
- sanxiyn 4y agoLLMs totally do, and the fact can be confirmed by experiment. See "Speak, Memory: An Archaeology of Books Known to ChatGPT/GPT-4": https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.00118 https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.00118
- lmm 4y ago> What happens if I create a 10 lines function character by character identical to some proprietary or GPLled piece of code, without ever looking at that code nor knowing that it existed? Then you're in the clear, though you may need to convince a court that that's what happened. (Patents and trademarks could still be issues, but there's no copyright issue)