3 ms·

Since weights are not distributed only used by Github to provide the service, they need not worry about GPL atleast. I don't know about AGPL.

bayindirh 2y ago
What about the emitted code which is actually derived from GPL code? What about BSL, SSPL, or other source available (for your eyes only) licenses? Copilot harvests all public repos, regardless of its license.
- bluesign 2y ago
  IANAL but searched a lot on this, this is very tricky subject legally. To simplify: - imagine all code Copilot trained on is GPL licensed. - we have a universal function `isInfringing(code)` that has access to all GPL code, and returns `true` if it is infringing some GPL code. for a given prompt; if `isInfringing(copilot(prompt))==false` we cannot claim copilot infringing on GPL code, even it is trained on GPLed code. so the problem starts here; does the piece of code copilot emits, if written by yourself also would be infringing ?
  - luqtas 2y ago
    > so the problem starts here; does the piece of code copilot emits, if written by yourself also would be infringing ? why everyone on discussions tries to bring "if a human made it"? a generative AI operates way faster than anyone ever existed and ever will and probably a person aware of the license & acting respectful towards it, will create something more sensible/plausible to avoid plagiarism now having dozen/hundreds/thousands of humans substituted by a machine that makes money for some for-profit company is really fair? even if they were a non-profit, as someone pointed up, people who create the content that feeds the weights aren't recieving a penny! they already made money with it, they will make more & that is/will upgrading/e the state of gen. AI for sure legal battles on people copying code from permissive licenses should exist but it's feels a different discussion
    - bluesign 2y ago
      because discussion is around 'legal' and laws only apply to humans. On ethical side of the discussion, I tend to agree with you. But it is also complicated subject; 'fair' in general is complicated, all this, GPL/AGPL stuff born out of this subject. Hosting GPL code as SaaS is legal but not 'fair' for example.
  - mzl 2y ago
    If one was sufficiently inspired by code A when writing code B, then it is a derivate work. This is a core tenet of copyright law. At what measure is one sufficiently inspired for it to be a derivate work? That is up to courts to decide.
    - bluesign 2y ago
      yeah the problem here is there is no 'code A' usually, it is more like: 1000s of GPLed code (A1, A2, ... An ) Technically when you get a piece from each, there is no infringement legally. ( as they have all different copyright holders )
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        From my understanding of a blog post by GitHub last year, they are planning to launch a tool to find similar code to what emitted by CoPilot, implying that CoPilot does not mix multiple sources for a single function, but derives a code block it found with a similar functionality (or maybe bigger blocks with similar functionality, IDK). If CoPilot indeed derives a function (or a functional block) from a single source, it might plainly violate the license of the repository where it derives the code from. There are many questions, and nothing is clear cut. The only thing I know is, I will never use that thing. EDIT: I remembered that people were able to make CoPilot emit their code almost as-is with the correct prompts: https://x.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 https://x.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 So it's not we're taking a bit from n different sources, and generate something with that.
      - anticensor 2y ago
        > Technically when you get a piece from each, there is no infringement legally. False in ex-Commonwealth countries and Japan.
starspangled 2y ago
So outputs are definitely not derivative work of training data, only weights? For this exact code that github is using, anything called "AI", or any computer code at all which produces work based in whole or in part on input data? And for which jurisdictions has this been established? What is the legal argument that "weights" are derivative but output is not? I'm surprised it's so clear cut as you say, but I haven't really been following the whole kerfuffle.
kimixa 2y ago
If those weights are a derivative of GPL'd code in a different form, and the results generate things derived from that derivative, then the generated code is still under license. "How much change is enough" has always been a gray area for courts and humans to decide. If you can get a decent facsimile of licensed code out the other end, how is it really any different from lossy compression? I doubt the courts would consider a lossy re-encode of a disney movie as free from copyright.
- Hamuko 2y ago
  >If those weights are a derivative of GPL'd code in a different form, and the results generate things derived from that derivative, then the generated code is still under license. That's not really Microsoft's problem as long as people aren't afraid of using Copilot to generate (potentially GPL'd) code. And from what I've generally seen from genAI discussions at work, people think very little about any legal implications.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  If the output is substantially similar to GPL’d training data it may be infringing. Nobody disputes this. However, copyright isn’t cooties. If the output is not similar, then it is not infringing regardless of how much GPL’d training data was used to generate it.
  - kimixa 2y ago
    Indeed, that's why I said >"How much change is enough" has always been a gray area for courts and humans to decide. But copilot has been shown to generate chunks of sufficient size and specificity that as a layman it very much feels like "copied GPL code". And my boss agrees too - we have a blanket ban on generative AI tools in our work because it's not considered worth the risk.
    - londons_explore 2y ago
      > has been shown to generate chunks of sufficient size and specificity Only when given chinks of copyrighted code as input. I don't think anyone has demonstrated big chunks of copyrighted code in the output when copyrighted code isn't present in the query/context. In fact, I suspect microsoft specifically filters the output for that.

bayindirh 2y ago

What about the emitted code which is actually derived from GPL code? What about BSL, SSPL, or other source available (for your eyes only) licenses? Copilot harvests all public repos, regardless of its license.

bluesign 2y ago
IANAL but searched a lot on this, this is very tricky subject legally. To simplify: - imagine all code Copilot trained on is GPL licensed. - we have a universal function `isInfringing(code)` that has access to all GPL code, and returns `true` if it is infringing some GPL code. for a given prompt; if `isInfringing(copilot(prompt))==false` we cannot claim copilot infringing on GPL code, even it is trained on GPLed code. so the problem starts here; does the piece of code copilot emits, if written by yourself also would be infringing ?
- luqtas 2y ago
  > so the problem starts here; does the piece of code copilot emits, if written by yourself also would be infringing ? why everyone on discussions tries to bring "if a human made it"? a generative AI operates way faster than anyone ever existed and ever will and probably a person aware of the license & acting respectful towards it, will create something more sensible/plausible to avoid plagiarism now having dozen/hundreds/thousands of humans substituted by a machine that makes money for some for-profit company is really fair? even if they were a non-profit, as someone pointed up, people who create the content that feeds the weights aren't recieving a penny! they already made money with it, they will make more & that is/will upgrading/e the state of gen. AI for sure legal battles on people copying code from permissive licenses should exist but it's feels a different discussion
  - bluesign 2y ago
    because discussion is around 'legal' and laws only apply to humans. On ethical side of the discussion, I tend to agree with you. But it is also complicated subject; 'fair' in general is complicated, all this, GPL/AGPL stuff born out of this subject. Hosting GPL code as SaaS is legal but not 'fair' for example.
- mzl 2y ago
  If one was sufficiently inspired by code A when writing code B, then it is a derivate work. This is a core tenet of copyright law. At what measure is one sufficiently inspired for it to be a derivate work? That is up to courts to decide.
  - bluesign 2y ago
    yeah the problem here is there is no 'code A' usually, it is more like: 1000s of GPLed code (A1, A2, ... An ) Technically when you get a piece from each, there is no infringement legally. ( as they have all different copyright holders )
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      From my understanding of a blog post by GitHub last year, they are planning to launch a tool to find similar code to what emitted by CoPilot, implying that CoPilot does not mix multiple sources for a single function, but derives a code block it found with a similar functionality (or maybe bigger blocks with similar functionality, IDK). If CoPilot indeed derives a function (or a functional block) from a single source, it might plainly violate the license of the repository where it derives the code from. There are many questions, and nothing is clear cut. The only thing I know is, I will never use that thing. EDIT: I remembered that people were able to make CoPilot emit their code almost as-is with the correct prompts: https://x.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 https://x.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 So it's not we're taking a bit from n different sources, and generate something with that.
    - anticensor 2y ago
      > Technically when you get a piece from each, there is no infringement legally. False in ex-Commonwealth countries and Japan.

starspangled 2y ago

So outputs are definitely not derivative work of training data, only weights? For this exact code that github is using, anything called "AI", or any computer code at all which produces work based in whole or in part on input data? And for which jurisdictions has this been established? What is the legal argument that "weights" are derivative but output is not? I'm surprised it's so clear cut as you say, but I haven't really been following the whole kerfuffle.

kimixa 2y ago

If those weights are a derivative of GPL'd code in a different form, and the results generate things derived from that derivative, then the generated code is still under license. "How much change is enough" has always been a gray area for courts and humans to decide. If you can get a decent facsimile of licensed code out the other end, how is it really any different from lossy compression? I doubt the courts would consider a lossy re-encode of a disney movie as free from copyright.

Hamuko 2y ago
>If those weights are a derivative of GPL'd code in a different form, and the results generate things derived from that derivative, then the generated code is still under license. That's not really Microsoft's problem as long as people aren't afraid of using Copilot to generate (potentially GPL'd) code. And from what I've generally seen from genAI discussions at work, people think very little about any legal implications.
zarzavat 2y ago
If the output is substantially similar to GPL’d training data it may be infringing. Nobody disputes this. However, copyright isn’t cooties. If the output is not similar, then it is not infringing regardless of how much GPL’d training data was used to generate it.
- kimixa 2y ago
  Indeed, that's why I said >"How much change is enough" has always been a gray area for courts and humans to decide. But copilot has been shown to generate chunks of sufficient size and specificity that as a layman it very much feels like "copied GPL code". And my boss agrees too - we have a blanket ban on generative AI tools in our work because it's not considered worth the risk.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    > has been shown to generate chunks of sufficient size and specificity Only when given chinks of copyrighted code as input. I don't think anyone has demonstrated big chunks of copyrighted code in the output when copyrighted code isn't present in the query/context. In fact, I suspect microsoft specifically filters the output for that.