3 ms·

Given that the GPL is entirely dependent on copyright to be enforceable, the fact that AI contributions are not copyrightable is something that is going to bite

by rswail 3mo ago

Given that the GPL is entirely dependent on copyright to be enforceable, the fact that AI contributions are not copyrightable is something that is going to bite someone big very soon. The US copyright office has released a public report about the fact that copyright requires a human author. They compare the different cases of the equivalent of "prompt engineering", of a client that provides an architect guidance on what they want, but the architect holds the copyright in the actual drawings and structure, even if they use CAD tools. Totally AI generated code as a result of a prompt is not going to be able to be defended under copyright IPRs. So GCC are literally ensuring that there is a human in the loop to ensure that the GPL will stay enforceable.

matheusmoreira 3mo ago
https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-2-Copyrightability-Report.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intell... > Modifying or Arranging AI-Generated Content > Generating content with AI is often an initial or intermediate step, and human authorship may be added in the final product. > As explained in the AI Registration Guidance, “a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’” > A human may also “modify material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications meet the standard for copyright protection.” > As several commenters noted, human authors should be able to claim copyright if they select, coordinate, and arrange AI-generated material in a creative way. > This would provide protection for the output as a whole (although not the AI-generated material alone). > A number of commenters also made the point that if a user edits, adapts, enhances, or modifies AI-generated output in a way that contributes new authorship, the output would be entitled to protection. > Although such works would not technically qualify as “derivative works,” derivative authorship provides a helpful analogy in identifying originality. > Again, the copyright would extend to the material the human author contributed but would not extend to the underlying AI-generated content itself.
- MichaelMoser123 3mo ago
  Interesting link, thanks. What about the contradiction between the next two sentences? “a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’” "copyright would extend to the material the human author contributed but would not extend to the underlying AI-generated content itself." The linked document is mentioning the act of selecting AI generated images for a comic book as an example, where the result is adding material that is copyrightable on its own merit. I am not sure if the same line of reasoning would apply to programming. "in one early case, for instance, the Office found that the selection and arrangement of AI-generated images with human-authored text in a comic book were protectable as a compilation." I think that AI is adding an extra layer of politics to just about everything. It is as if we are entering a phase of super-extra politics, as everyone is trying to figure out what should come next. Instead of a war with machines we get an eternal war among lawyers and managers. Don't know which prospect is worse.
Magicrafter13 3mo ago
> AI contributions are not copyrightable LLMs are trained on code that's already copyrighted, so their output may already be someone's copyright. Non-trivial LLM generated code is unethical to use since you're very likely violating someone's license.
- alerighi 3mo ago
  An this is exactly the reason why the GNU project doesn't want LLM contributions. They don't want the chance that lawyers of some big tech state that they violated they copyright and asks for millions of compensation, like it happened in the past in different scenarios, because an LLM decided to copy an identical piece of code that is present in a closed source project (where the LLM was trained to, because you don't know the license of the training dataset, who knows if OpenAI or Anthropic or others for example trains their LLM on their private codebase).

by rswail 3mo ago

matheusmoreira 3mo ago

https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-2-Copyrightability-Report.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intell... > Modifying or Arranging AI-Generated Content > Generating content with AI is often an initial or intermediate step, and human authorship may be added in the final product. > As explained in the AI Registration Guidance, “a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’” > A human may also “modify material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications meet the standard for copyright protection.” > As several commenters noted, human authors should be able to claim copyright if they select, coordinate, and arrange AI-generated material in a creative way. > This would provide protection for the output as a whole (although not the AI-generated material alone). > A number of commenters also made the point that if a user edits, adapts, enhances, or modifies AI-generated output in a way that contributes new authorship, the output would be entitled to protection. > Although such works would not technically qualify as “derivative works,” derivative authorship provides a helpful analogy in identifying originality. > Again, the copyright would extend to the material the human author contributed but would not extend to the underlying AI-generated content itself.

MichaelMoser123 3mo ago
Interesting link, thanks. What about the contradiction between the next two sentences? “a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’” "copyright would extend to the material the human author contributed but would not extend to the underlying AI-generated content itself." The linked document is mentioning the act of selecting AI generated images for a comic book as an example, where the result is adding material that is copyrightable on its own merit. I am not sure if the same line of reasoning would apply to programming. "in one early case, for instance, the Office found that the selection and arrangement of AI-generated images with human-authored text in a comic book were protectable as a compilation." I think that AI is adding an extra layer of politics to just about everything. It is as if we are entering a phase of super-extra politics, as everyone is trying to figure out what should come next. Instead of a war with machines we get an eternal war among lawyers and managers. Don't know which prospect is worse.

Magicrafter13 3mo ago

> AI contributions are not copyrightable LLMs are trained on code that's already copyrighted, so their output may already be someone's copyright. Non-trivial LLM generated code is unethical to use since you're very likely violating someone's license.

alerighi 3mo ago
An this is exactly the reason why the GNU project doesn't want LLM contributions. They don't want the chance that lawyers of some big tech state that they violated they copyright and asks for millions of compensation, like it happened in the past in different scenarios, because an LLM decided to copy an identical piece of code that is present in a closed source project (where the LLM was trained to, because you don't know the license of the training dataset, who knows if OpenAI or Anthropic or others for example trains their LLM on their private codebase).