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The judge argues that copilot “rarely emits memorised code in benign situations”, but what happens when it does? It is bound to happen some day, and when it doe

The judge argues that copilot “rarely emits memorised code in benign situations”, but what happens when it does? It is bound to happen some day, and when it does would I be breaching copyright by publishing the code copilot wrote? Just a few weeks ago a very similar suit for stable diffusion had its motion to dismiss copyright infringement claims denied. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/artists-claim-bi https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/artists-claim-bi...

blackoil 2y ago
You'll get a second system, that searches your code against index of copyrighted code. If found say > 70% matching against some unique code, it will be flagged for rewrite. It can be automated in Copilot to simply regenerate with a different seed.
- bschmidt1 2y ago
  In some languages there are few ways (or 1 way) to do things, so everyone writes the same looking for loops, etc. And sometimes in the same order, with the same filenames, etc. by convention - especially in the case of heavy framework usage where most people's code is mostly identical % wise. The flagging system would have to be able to identify framework usage separate from IP and so-on. Beyond that, it seems like you'd need a highly expressive language for this to work well. You can effectively scan for plagiarism in English because it's so varied that it really is an outlier to see several lines of text that are identical to each other from different sources, but maybe it's not that strange to see entirely identical files, or at least very similar code, in totally distinct, say, React or Ruby-on-Rails projects. I think of code methodologies as more like construction techniques. Maybe some pieces and parts are patentable, and some can even be productized as tools, but a lot of it is just convention and technique.
- hadlock 2y ago
  Looking forward to the "rewrite this over and over until it no longer triggers the copyright-warning alarm" button in my IDE
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Analemma_ 2y ago
The same thing that happens if you write a song which happens to have the same pattern of four notes as another song: absolutely nothing, because that would be an insane standard to hold copyright to and would lead to nothing ever being produced without a tidal wave of infringement suits.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- to11mtm 2y ago
  Depends... But frankly one could ask whether this would be closer to 'Sampling'...
dragonwriter 2y ago
> The judge argues that copilot “rarely emits memorised code in benign situations”, but what happens when it does? It is bound to happen some day, and when it does would I be breaching copyright if i, unknowingly, published the code copilot wrote? That's irrelevant to the case being made against GitHub, which is why it is addressed in the decision. > Just a few weeks ago a very similar suit for stable diffusion had its motion to dismiss copyright infringement claims denied. The case against Midjourney, SAI, and RunwayML is based on a very different legal theory -- it is a simple direct copyright violation case ("they copied our work onto their servers and used it to train models") whereas the Copilot case (the copyright part of it) is a DMCA case claiming that Copilot removes copyright information management information. It's not really surprising that the Copilot case was easier to dispose of without trial; it was a big stretch that had the advantage for the plaintiffs that, were it allowed to go forward, it doesn't admit a fair use defense the way a traditional direct copyright violation case does. They aren't really "similar" except that both are lawsuits against AI service/model providers that rest some subset of their claims on some part of Title 17 of the US Code.
slavik81 2y ago
I am not a lawyer, but I explore these questions by imagining an existing situation with a human. If your friend gave you code to publish and it turned out he gave you someone else's code that he had memorized, would you be breaching copyright? The answer in that case is plainly yes, and I think it would be no different with an LLM. Substituting a human for a computer changes some aspects of the situation (e.g., the LLM cannot hold copyright over the works it creates), but it's useful because it leaves the real human's actions unchanged. However, for more complex questions that interact with things like work-for-hire contract law, you may need to take a more sophisticated approach.
kelnos 2y ago
> and when it does would I be breaching copyright by publishing the code copilot wrote? Presumably OpenAI would be committing copyright infringement by even displaying that code to you, if it does not have a license to do so.
- to11mtm 2y ago
  'Normally' IIRC you would still be a party to the lawsuit. Might get out of it depending on specifics but you'd be a party. OTOH, I -thought?- that part of at least enterprise Copilot was that they would defend in such cases.

blackoil 2y ago

You'll get a second system, that searches your code against index of copyrighted code. If found say > 70% matching against some unique code, it will be flagged for rewrite. It can be automated in Copilot to simply regenerate with a different seed.

bschmidt1 2y ago
In some languages there are few ways (or 1 way) to do things, so everyone writes the same looking for loops, etc. And sometimes in the same order, with the same filenames, etc. by convention - especially in the case of heavy framework usage where most people's code is mostly identical % wise. The flagging system would have to be able to identify framework usage separate from IP and so-on. Beyond that, it seems like you'd need a highly expressive language for this to work well. You can effectively scan for plagiarism in English because it's so varied that it really is an outlier to see several lines of text that are identical to each other from different sources, but maybe it's not that strange to see entirely identical files, or at least very similar code, in totally distinct, say, React or Ruby-on-Rails projects. I think of code methodologies as more like construction techniques. Maybe some pieces and parts are patentable, and some can even be productized as tools, but a lot of it is just convention and technique.
hadlock 2y ago
Looking forward to the "rewrite this over and over until it no longer triggers the copyright-warning alarm" button in my IDE
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Analemma_ 2y ago

The same thing that happens if you write a song which happens to have the same pattern of four notes as another song: absolutely nothing, because that would be an insane standard to hold copyright to and would lead to nothing ever being produced without a tidal wave of infringement suits.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
to11mtm 2y ago
Depends... But frankly one could ask whether this would be closer to 'Sampling'...

dragonwriter 2y ago

> The judge argues that copilot “rarely emits memorised code in benign situations”, but what happens when it does? It is bound to happen some day, and when it does would I be breaching copyright if i, unknowingly, published the code copilot wrote? That's irrelevant to the case being made against GitHub, which is why it is addressed in the decision. > Just a few weeks ago a very similar suit for stable diffusion had its motion to dismiss copyright infringement claims denied. The case against Midjourney, SAI, and RunwayML is based on a very different legal theory -- it is a simple direct copyright violation case ("they copied our work onto their servers and used it to train models") whereas the Copilot case (the copyright part of it) is a DMCA case claiming that Copilot removes copyright information management information. It's not really surprising that the Copilot case was easier to dispose of without trial; it was a big stretch that had the advantage for the plaintiffs that, were it allowed to go forward, it doesn't admit a fair use defense the way a traditional direct copyright violation case does. They aren't really "similar" except that both are lawsuits against AI service/model providers that rest some subset of their claims on some part of Title 17 of the US Code.

slavik81 2y ago

I am not a lawyer, but I explore these questions by imagining an existing situation with a human. If your friend gave you code to publish and it turned out he gave you someone else's code that he had memorized, would you be breaching copyright? The answer in that case is plainly yes, and I think it would be no different with an LLM. Substituting a human for a computer changes some aspects of the situation (e.g., the LLM cannot hold copyright over the works it creates), but it's useful because it leaves the real human's actions unchanged. However, for more complex questions that interact with things like work-for-hire contract law, you may need to take a more sophisticated approach.

kelnos 2y ago

> and when it does would I be breaching copyright by publishing the code copilot wrote? Presumably OpenAI would be committing copyright infringement by even displaying that code to you, if it does not have a license to do so.

to11mtm 2y ago
'Normally' IIRC you would still be a party to the lawsuit. Might get out of it depending on specifics but you'd be a party. OTOH, I -thought?- that part of at least enterprise Copilot was that they would defend in such cases.