3 ms·

> reproduction doesn't usually happen unless you go to extra lengths to make it. And who is to say that people who want to copy your code without adhering to

by omeid2 2y ago

> reproduction doesn't usually happen unless you go to extra lengths to make it. And who is to say that people who want to copy your code without adhering to your license terms or pay won't go to extra lengths? or am I missing something here?

umeshunni 2y ago
At that point, they might as well copy your original code without going through an LLM to do it
williamcotton 2y ago
Well then you end up with a work that a judge will allow to proceed to trial. Only expressive software is protected by copyright and sometimes that interpretation should be handled by a jury.
mistercow 2y ago
It’s trained on publicly available code, so what would be the point of that? If you’re looking to specifically infringe the copyright of code available on the open web, using an LLM code completion engine is just about the most roundabout and unreliable way to achieve that.
- m4rtink 2y ago
  Isn't this all about turning community developed GPL licensed code into your own (LLM regurgitatetd) code that you can than make proprietary, saving a lot of money and not giving back anything to the original community?
  - mistercow 2y ago
    That's not generally how the legal system works. If you've disabled the duplication filter, and then generated substantial amounts of duplicated GPL code and then violated the GPL license, a judge is not going to say "Well, fair enough, you used the loophole of copying code through an LLM, after all." They're going to treat it as a willful copyright violation, the same as if you'd just copied and pasted it. And again, I have to ask: why? Why would you think that putting tons of time and effort into tricking the model into repeating memorized code is going to be a better investment than just using it normally to implement the functionality you want?
  - bdw5204 2y ago
    It is but "AI" is considered such an "important" technology at the moment that no judge is going to want to be the one that "destroys innovation" by enforcing copyright law. If the perception of the technology changes in the political world in an unfavorable manner, these cases would go the other way or (if there's precedent) they'll pass laws overturning the precedents.
ec109685 2y ago
Wouldn’t the person themselves be in violation at that point and the owner of the code could go after them? (I know this wouldn’t be super practical but it seems to match what would have without an LLM in between).
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Possibly. But how would they know unless they searched all the LLM's sources for any snippets it suggested?
- threecheese 2y ago
  This is the primary impediment to my large org at $work using llm-based coding tools: potential accidentally duplicated source code and the legal implications (including the risk of a viral copyleft license easter egg).
nl 2y ago
> And who is to say that people who want to copy your code without adhering to your license terms or pay won't go to extra lengths? or am I missing something here? It seems like they could just download your code from Github and violate your license like that so.. unclear why they'd bother doing it via copilot.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Copilot cooyright-washes the license. So even we'll behaved devs could unknowingly copy code without complying with the license.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Although legally there may be a problem, in practice this seems to be a bit of a "so what?" scenario. Our hypothetical dev is using a tool that writes a function. It writes the function. The dev was going to get a function that did what he wanted one way or another so it isn't clear that it makes much difference if the function happens to be a clone of a copyrighted function. If it were my GPLed code being copied, it doesn't seem to make any difference whether I press copyright claims or not. It won't help me compete against this dev's company. They'd use Copilot to rewrite the code differently. The speed of improvement in code-writing tools doesn't give me much hope that my code is uniquely clever.
  - cthalupa 2y ago
    It's unclear to me that that is the case. If I prompt an image generation model specifically to generate an unlicensed picture of Batman, I do not suspect that a judge is going to be sympathetic to the argument that the t-shirt I was selling was made by DALL-E so I should be free of any copyright infringement claims against me. Why would specifically prompting the LLM to generate similarly copyrighted code be any different? That's what's being discussed here - that people will "go the extra lengths" to intentionally copy your code. The "It wasn't me, it was the tool, even though I directed the tool quite specifically to do the thing that happened" is not a new defense in the legal systems of the world. We are already generally are able to deal with these without significant issue.
nox101 2y ago
This is legal for a person to do, right? Why should it not be legal for an LLM to do? AFAIK but IANAL, I can go look at a solution in a GPLed library and then code that solution in my proprietary code base. As in, "oh, I see, the used a hash map for that and a list of this, and locked at this point. I'll code up something similar". As along as you don't "copy the code" you're fine. Am I wrong? Is it just a matter of scale? (hey there LLM, re-write all of OpenOffice into ClosedOffice).
- consteval 2y ago
  > This is legal for a person to do, right? Why should it not be legal for an LLM to do? Because humans are human. We are rewarded extra super duper rights that inanimate things, such as a computer program, are not rewarded. I think we should therefore work to demonstrate this is not the case, which is very hard to do. No idea why we would work under the absolutely insane, never-before-seen assumption that computer programs deserve human rights. I don't know where this line of reasoning started, or why, but at it's core it's so unbelievably preposterous (and against the very wellbeing of mankind).

by omeid2 2y ago

umeshunni 2y ago

At that point, they might as well copy your original code without going through an LLM to do it

williamcotton 2y ago

Well then you end up with a work that a judge will allow to proceed to trial. Only expressive software is protected by copyright and sometimes that interpretation should be handled by a jury.

mistercow 2y ago

It’s trained on publicly available code, so what would be the point of that? If you’re looking to specifically infringe the copyright of code available on the open web, using an LLM code completion engine is just about the most roundabout and unreliable way to achieve that.

m4rtink 2y ago
Isn't this all about turning community developed GPL licensed code into your own (LLM regurgitatetd) code that you can than make proprietary, saving a lot of money and not giving back anything to the original community?
- mistercow 2y ago
  That's not generally how the legal system works. If you've disabled the duplication filter, and then generated substantial amounts of duplicated GPL code and then violated the GPL license, a judge is not going to say "Well, fair enough, you used the loophole of copying code through an LLM, after all." They're going to treat it as a willful copyright violation, the same as if you'd just copied and pasted it. And again, I have to ask: why? Why would you think that putting tons of time and effort into tricking the model into repeating memorized code is going to be a better investment than just using it normally to implement the functionality you want?
- bdw5204 2y ago
  It is but "AI" is considered such an "important" technology at the moment that no judge is going to want to be the one that "destroys innovation" by enforcing copyright law. If the perception of the technology changes in the political world in an unfavorable manner, these cases would go the other way or (if there's precedent) they'll pass laws overturning the precedents.

ec109685 2y ago

Wouldn’t the person themselves be in violation at that point and the owner of the code could go after them? (I know this wouldn’t be super practical but it seems to match what would have without an LLM in between).

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Possibly. But how would they know unless they searched all the LLM's sources for any snippets it suggested?
threecheese 2y ago
This is the primary impediment to my large org at $work using llm-based coding tools: potential accidentally duplicated source code and the legal implications (including the risk of a viral copyleft license easter egg).

nl 2y ago

> And who is to say that people who want to copy your code without adhering to your license terms or pay won't go to extra lengths? or am I missing something here? It seems like they could just download your code from Github and violate your license like that so.. unclear why they'd bother doing it via copilot.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Copilot cooyright-washes the license. So even we'll behaved devs could unknowingly copy code without complying with the license.
- roenxi 2y ago
  Although legally there may be a problem, in practice this seems to be a bit of a "so what?" scenario. Our hypothetical dev is using a tool that writes a function. It writes the function. The dev was going to get a function that did what he wanted one way or another so it isn't clear that it makes much difference if the function happens to be a clone of a copyrighted function. If it were my GPLed code being copied, it doesn't seem to make any difference whether I press copyright claims or not. It won't help me compete against this dev's company. They'd use Copilot to rewrite the code differently. The speed of improvement in code-writing tools doesn't give me much hope that my code is uniquely clever.
- cthalupa 2y ago
  It's unclear to me that that is the case. If I prompt an image generation model specifically to generate an unlicensed picture of Batman, I do not suspect that a judge is going to be sympathetic to the argument that the t-shirt I was selling was made by DALL-E so I should be free of any copyright infringement claims against me. Why would specifically prompting the LLM to generate similarly copyrighted code be any different? That's what's being discussed here - that people will "go the extra lengths" to intentionally copy your code. The "It wasn't me, it was the tool, even though I directed the tool quite specifically to do the thing that happened" is not a new defense in the legal systems of the world. We are already generally are able to deal with these without significant issue.

nox101 2y ago

This is legal for a person to do, right? Why should it not be legal for an LLM to do? AFAIK but IANAL, I can go look at a solution in a GPLed library and then code that solution in my proprietary code base. As in, "oh, I see, the used a hash map for that and a list of this, and locked at this point. I'll code up something similar". As along as you don't "copy the code" you're fine. Am I wrong? Is it just a matter of scale? (hey there LLM, re-write all of OpenOffice into ClosedOffice).

consteval 2y ago
> This is legal for a person to do, right? Why should it not be legal for an LLM to do? Because humans are human. We are rewarded extra super duper rights that inanimate things, such as a computer program, are not rewarded. I think we should therefore work to demonstrate this is not the case, which is very hard to do. No idea why we would work under the absolutely insane, never-before-seen assumption that computer programs deserve human rights. I don't know where this line of reasoning started, or why, but at it's core it's so unbelievably preposterous (and against the very wellbeing of mankind).