7 ms·

Oracle, the law firm with a tech business attached, probably wants to retain the option to sue other people for AI-washing their proprietary code, and that does

by jerf 2mo ago

Oracle, the law firm with a tech business attached, probably wants to retain the option to sue other people for AI-washing their proprietary code, and that doesn't work if they're also publicly accepting AI contributions to their code with no apparent concern for the provenance of it. The tech business would probably tell them this isn't going to be a needle they are going to be able to successfully thread, but the law firm is in the driver's seat.

victorbjorklund 2mo ago
Not even a conspiracy theory. Just the most likely explanation.
- throw1234567891 2mo ago
  It’s been established that LLM-generated code is not copyrighted so I can fully understand the company living from copyrighted data to not accept LLM-generated contributions.
  - lxgr 2mo ago
    I highly doubt that that's the last word on that matter, but even if: Even before LLMs you could combine individual non-copyrighted components into something copyrighted.
  - inejge 2mo ago
    > It’s been established that LLM-generated code is not copyrighted If that's a reference to Thaler v. Perlmutter, the only thing that's been established is that an LLM can't be considered an author under the Copyright Act, only a human being can. It says nothing about the consequences of a human claiming authorship of LLM-generated code, which would be relevant here.
    - throw1234567891 2mo ago
      You lay out my words in different order and claim I’m not correct.
      - SR2Z 2mo ago
        No, your claim is "LLM generated code is not copyrighted." His claim is "LLM generated code is eligible for copyright."
        criddell 2mo ago
        My understanding (belief) is that it's going to depend on how much human involvement is there. If you write a prompt and one-shot a problem and share the source code, that source code is probably not covered by copyright. If you substantially edit or modify the generated code you would own the copyright. It's like with a camera. If I set a camera and carefully aim it and somehow trigger the shutter then make adjustments in Photoshop, I own the copyright on that image. If I stick a Flock camera on a pole somewhere and post the live output, there's been no meaningful human creative involvement in producing those images and so nobody can claim copyright on them.
        Alive-in-2025 2mo ago
        I think if I as a human use an llm to do something technical that would qualify copyright, it should still qualify for copyright. How do you decide how much human is copyrightable. If I use a package that writes code or use a library for some piece of it, I could still copyright. I don't like this idea that llm code can't be owned by a human, copyrighted. It's just code. I think your last example with flock camera is relevant here - I can take a picture of a public football as a reporter or something (or a fan I guess) and I can copyright and sell that picture. Newspapers do it every day. So if I stand on a street corner and take a pic, it's copyrightable. If I take a pic using a flock camera it should also be copyrightable, just like if my nest camera at home takes a pic of something, I can use that. I guess you are saying "someone else owns the flock camera" so you don't get to own pictures. What if I buy the flock-like camera and put it up, I should own that.
  - semiquaver 2mo ago
    This is a false narrative based on a (IMO often intentional) misunderstanding. It has by no means been established by any court that LLM-generated code is not copyrightable. Thaler v. Perlmutter stands for a much narrower proposition and at any rate is not binding nationally, SCOTUS having denied certiorari.
    - ethin 2mo ago
      This is not necessarily true. While no court has explicitly come out and said that copyright does not apply to AI-generated works of authorship, the US copyright office has[0]: > Based on an analysis of copyright law and policy, informed by the many thoughtful comments in response to our NOI, the Office makes the following conclusions and recommendations: > • Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change. > • The use of AI tools to assist rather than stand in for human creativity does not affect the availability of copyright protection for the output. > • Copyright protects the original expression in a work created by a human author, even if the work also includes AI-generated material. > • Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements. > • Whether human contributions to AI-generated outputs are sufficient to constitute authorship must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. > • Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, prompts do not alone provide sufficient control. > • Human authors are entitled to copyright in their works of authorship that are perceptible in AI-generated outputs, as well as the creative selection, coordination, or arrangement of material in the outputs, or creative modifications of the outputs. > • The case has not been made for additional copyright or sui generis protection for AI-generated content. > The Office will continue to monitor technological and legal developments to determine whether any of these conclusions should be revisited. It will also provide ongoing assistance to the public, including through additional registration guidance and an update to the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices. Congress or the courts could, of course, override the stance of the copyright office, but I think it would be highly unusual for them to do so (particularly for something like this). It would however be a lot better if congress just stepped in and said no outright, but until then this will have to do. [0]: https://www.copyright.gov/ai https://www.copyright.gov/ai
  - victorbjorklund 2mo ago
    It has not been established that in every legal system you have no copyright for anything in a project that was assisted in parts by LLM:s.
- TimTheTinker 2mo ago
  "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn - you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' - lawnmower doesn't give a * about you, the lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." --Bryan Cantrill
  - cyanydeez 2mo ago
    more and more it seems like he's referring to billionaires more or less.
    - philipallstar 2mo ago
      That's because you've had years of consuming media that blames everything on billionaires.
      - Alive-in-2025 2mo ago
        well, plus the evidence of billionaires pushing for things that aren't that great after all. Maybe good for their bankroll though.
      - CursedSilicon 2mo ago
        Ah, yes. The media. Famously the voice of the proletariat and the oppressed Walter Lippmann is spinning in his grave
        hunterpayne 2mo ago
        For reference, Walter Lippmann is the guy from the NYT who covered up the Holodomor in Ukraine (1930s) in the west as well as Stalin's gulags and purges. I wouldn't call him the voice of the proletariat in any way. He was the voice of the Stalinist in the west and the term tankie was invented for him and people like him.
phendrenad2 2mo ago
Legal departments are ironically very much like LLMs. They are trained on a narrow set of data and don't really understand the real world. If you let them run wild with no supervision they'll turn your company into slop. Someone needs to be there to reign them in, asking the all-important questions like "is suing all of our customers and making them angry REALLY the best option?" (to which they will reply, "You're right to push back on this"). This is typically the role of the CEO, however, as we know, most CEOs of large successful companies are too busy to actually do that. They're mostly training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, shitposting on their own social media platform, trying to manipulate international politics, or helping run their family nonprofit. This is why I believe that legal departments need to be demoted. The legal department should not report to the CEO, they should report to a new role that is above both PR and legal. And that person's job should be to force legal and public relations (which we know are natural enemies) to work together. Every press release goes through legal now, and it's only logical that ever legal action should go through public relations review as well. The fact that public relations at most large companies has atrophied from disuse in our public-equity-owned unicorporate cooperation-over-competition chaebol/zaibatsu/conglomerate world is a problem for another day.
- dosisking 2mo ago
  > Legal departments are ironically very much like LLMs. Replacing legal departments with LLMs is probably the best use-case for LLMs. Using LLMs for coding is a waste of time and a dead end, however using LLMs for legal stuff would make the world a better place.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Meanwhile, on Lawyer News: Replacing development departments with AIs is probably the best use-case for AIs. Using AIs for law is a waste of time and a dead end, however using AIs for computer stuff would make the world a better place.
shevy-java 2mo ago
Makes sense, but they take an anti-AI stand, which I find good no matter for which reason they do that.
- jasonlotito 2mo ago
  No, they haven't. They are investing in it by the tune of billions. They are pro-AI.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    They are in fact investing so much that if AGI doesn't happen tomorrow, Larry Ellison may be bankrupt. I can't wait.
- taude 2mo ago
  You must be thinking of a different Oracle [1]. This Oracle is all in on AI. [1] https://www.cio.com/article/4125103/oracle-may-slash-up-to-30000-jobs-to-fund-ai-data-center-expansion-as-us-banks-retreat.html https://www.cio.com/article/4125103/oracle-may-slash-up-to-3...
- dd8601fn 2mo ago
  Oracle is so far into AI that if OpenAI doesn’t absolutely explode with revenue, fast, Oracle is in a world of shit like they’ve never seen.
  - theideaofcoffee 2mo ago
    God, don’t tempt me with a good time, and twice, at that!
- cleaning 2mo ago
  Great bit
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
TimTheTinker 2mo ago
What I don't understand is why anyone with half a brain would even venture to touch Oracle with a ten foot pole given that they've had this reputation for at least the last 25 years. Why, people?
- theideaofcoffee 2mo ago
  Ass-covering. The same reason why most huge enterprises buy insane support contracts for every other piece of shitty software: support, and someone to blame when production goes pear-shaped. Because there’s no real management left anywhere, there’s no time to grow expertise internally and everyone just needs that hit of Risk Management (tm), they’ll go to whatever lengths to get it. Oracle is like the ultimate warm, fuzzy blanket where that fuzz is actually mold, it delivers the scared-shitless enterprises from having to think for themselves.
- dearsiary7 2mo ago
  Because my boss like golf courses and even more when oracle sales rep pays.
  - TimTheTinker 2mo ago
    Wait, Oracle sales reps give decision-makers personal kickbacks for buying Oracle?? Stay classy Oracle. Such a banal depth of evil. Why hasn't this been outlawed? I guess companies that knowingly employ such managers deserve to lose whatever Oracle's legal team extracts out of them.
    - xyzzy_plugh 2mo ago
      You've clearly never purchased enterprise software at scale before. Oracle doesn't do anything that everyone else isn't already doing. Dinners, drinks, bottles of scotch, tickets to baseball and football games, plane tickets to attend training sessions in conference rooms attached to nice beachside hotels, business lunches at strip clubs, Superbowl tickets, cruise tickets, wristwatches... Not to mention mugs, tshirts, water bottles and stickers. Everything is on the menu.
grokcodec 2mo ago
It isn't known as One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison for nothing.

by jerf 2mo ago

victorbjorklund 2mo ago

Not even a conspiracy theory. Just the most likely explanation.

throw1234567891 2mo ago
It’s been established that LLM-generated code is not copyrighted so I can fully understand the company living from copyrighted data to not accept LLM-generated contributions.
- lxgr 2mo ago
  I highly doubt that that's the last word on that matter, but even if: Even before LLMs you could combine individual non-copyrighted components into something copyrighted.
- inejge 2mo ago
  > It’s been established that LLM-generated code is not copyrighted If that's a reference to Thaler v. Perlmutter, the only thing that's been established is that an LLM can't be considered an author under the Copyright Act, only a human being can. It says nothing about the consequences of a human claiming authorship of LLM-generated code, which would be relevant here.
  - throw1234567891 2mo ago
    You lay out my words in different order and claim I’m not correct.
    - SR2Z 2mo ago
      No, your claim is "LLM generated code is not copyrighted." His claim is "LLM generated code is eligible for copyright."
      - criddell 2mo ago
        My understanding (belief) is that it's going to depend on how much human involvement is there. If you write a prompt and one-shot a problem and share the source code, that source code is probably not covered by copyright. If you substantially edit or modify the generated code you would own the copyright. It's like with a camera. If I set a camera and carefully aim it and somehow trigger the shutter then make adjustments in Photoshop, I own the copyright on that image. If I stick a Flock camera on a pole somewhere and post the live output, there's been no meaningful human creative involvement in producing those images and so nobody can claim copyright on them.
        Alive-in-2025 2mo ago
        I think if I as a human use an llm to do something technical that would qualify copyright, it should still qualify for copyright. How do you decide how much human is copyrightable. If I use a package that writes code or use a library for some piece of it, I could still copyright. I don't like this idea that llm code can't be owned by a human, copyrighted. It's just code. I think your last example with flock camera is relevant here - I can take a picture of a public football as a reporter or something (or a fan I guess) and I can copyright and sell that picture. Newspapers do it every day. So if I stand on a street corner and take a pic, it's copyrightable. If I take a pic using a flock camera it should also be copyrightable, just like if my nest camera at home takes a pic of something, I can use that. I guess you are saying "someone else owns the flock camera" so you don't get to own pictures. What if I buy the flock-like camera and put it up, I should own that.
- semiquaver 2mo ago
  This is a false narrative based on a (IMO often intentional) misunderstanding. It has by no means been established by any court that LLM-generated code is not copyrightable. Thaler v. Perlmutter stands for a much narrower proposition and at any rate is not binding nationally, SCOTUS having denied certiorari.
  - ethin 2mo ago
    This is not necessarily true. While no court has explicitly come out and said that copyright does not apply to AI-generated works of authorship, the US copyright office has[0]: > Based on an analysis of copyright law and policy, informed by the many thoughtful comments in response to our NOI, the Office makes the following conclusions and recommendations: > • Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change. > • The use of AI tools to assist rather than stand in for human creativity does not affect the availability of copyright protection for the output. > • Copyright protects the original expression in a work created by a human author, even if the work also includes AI-generated material. > • Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements. > • Whether human contributions to AI-generated outputs are sufficient to constitute authorship must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. > • Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, prompts do not alone provide sufficient control. > • Human authors are entitled to copyright in their works of authorship that are perceptible in AI-generated outputs, as well as the creative selection, coordination, or arrangement of material in the outputs, or creative modifications of the outputs. > • The case has not been made for additional copyright or sui generis protection for AI-generated content. > The Office will continue to monitor technological and legal developments to determine whether any of these conclusions should be revisited. It will also provide ongoing assistance to the public, including through additional registration guidance and an update to the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices. Congress or the courts could, of course, override the stance of the copyright office, but I think it would be highly unusual for them to do so (particularly for something like this). It would however be a lot better if congress just stepped in and said no outright, but until then this will have to do. [0]: https://www.copyright.gov/ai https://www.copyright.gov/ai
- victorbjorklund 2mo ago
  It has not been established that in every legal system you have no copyright for anything in a project that was assisted in parts by LLM:s.
TimTheTinker 2mo ago
"Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn - you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' - lawnmower doesn't give a * about you, the lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." --Bryan Cantrill
- cyanydeez 2mo ago
  more and more it seems like he's referring to billionaires more or less.
  - philipallstar 2mo ago
    That's because you've had years of consuming media that blames everything on billionaires.
    - Alive-in-2025 2mo ago
      well, plus the evidence of billionaires pushing for things that aren't that great after all. Maybe good for their bankroll though.
    - CursedSilicon 2mo ago
      Ah, yes. The media. Famously the voice of the proletariat and the oppressed Walter Lippmann is spinning in his grave
      - hunterpayne 2mo ago
        For reference, Walter Lippmann is the guy from the NYT who covered up the Holodomor in Ukraine (1930s) in the west as well as Stalin's gulags and purges. I wouldn't call him the voice of the proletariat in any way. He was the voice of the Stalinist in the west and the term tankie was invented for him and people like him.

phendrenad2 2mo ago

Legal departments are ironically very much like LLMs. They are trained on a narrow set of data and don't really understand the real world. If you let them run wild with no supervision they'll turn your company into slop. Someone needs to be there to reign them in, asking the all-important questions like "is suing all of our customers and making them angry REALLY the best option?" (to which they will reply, "You're right to push back on this"). This is typically the role of the CEO, however, as we know, most CEOs of large successful companies are too busy to actually do that. They're mostly training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, shitposting on their own social media platform, trying to manipulate international politics, or helping run their family nonprofit. This is why I believe that legal departments need to be demoted. The legal department should not report to the CEO, they should report to a new role that is above both PR and legal. And that person's job should be to force legal and public relations (which we know are natural enemies) to work together. Every press release goes through legal now, and it's only logical that ever legal action should go through public relations review as well. The fact that public relations at most large companies has atrophied from disuse in our public-equity-owned unicorporate cooperation-over-competition chaebol/zaibatsu/conglomerate world is a problem for another day.

dosisking 2mo ago
> Legal departments are ironically very much like LLMs. Replacing legal departments with LLMs is probably the best use-case for LLMs. Using LLMs for coding is a waste of time and a dead end, however using LLMs for legal stuff would make the world a better place.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Meanwhile, on Lawyer News: Replacing development departments with AIs is probably the best use-case for AIs. Using AIs for law is a waste of time and a dead end, however using AIs for computer stuff would make the world a better place.

shevy-java 2mo ago

Makes sense, but they take an anti-AI stand, which I find good no matter for which reason they do that.

jasonlotito 2mo ago
No, they haven't. They are investing in it by the tune of billions. They are pro-AI.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  They are in fact investing so much that if AGI doesn't happen tomorrow, Larry Ellison may be bankrupt. I can't wait.
taude 2mo ago
You must be thinking of a different Oracle [1]. This Oracle is all in on AI. [1] https://www.cio.com/article/4125103/oracle-may-slash-up-to-30000-jobs-to-fund-ai-data-center-expansion-as-us-banks-retreat.html https://www.cio.com/article/4125103/oracle-may-slash-up-to-3...
dd8601fn 2mo ago
Oracle is so far into AI that if OpenAI doesn’t absolutely explode with revenue, fast, Oracle is in a world of shit like they’ve never seen.
- theideaofcoffee 2mo ago
  God, don’t tempt me with a good time, and twice, at that!
cleaning 2mo ago
Great bit

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

TimTheTinker 2mo ago

What I don't understand is why anyone with half a brain would even venture to touch Oracle with a ten foot pole given that they've had this reputation for at least the last 25 years. Why, people?

theideaofcoffee 2mo ago
Ass-covering. The same reason why most huge enterprises buy insane support contracts for every other piece of shitty software: support, and someone to blame when production goes pear-shaped. Because there’s no real management left anywhere, there’s no time to grow expertise internally and everyone just needs that hit of Risk Management (tm), they’ll go to whatever lengths to get it. Oracle is like the ultimate warm, fuzzy blanket where that fuzz is actually mold, it delivers the scared-shitless enterprises from having to think for themselves.
dearsiary7 2mo ago
Because my boss like golf courses and even more when oracle sales rep pays.
- TimTheTinker 2mo ago
  Wait, Oracle sales reps give decision-makers personal kickbacks for buying Oracle?? Stay classy Oracle. Such a banal depth of evil. Why hasn't this been outlawed? I guess companies that knowingly employ such managers deserve to lose whatever Oracle's legal team extracts out of them.
  - xyzzy_plugh 2mo ago
    You've clearly never purchased enterprise software at scale before. Oracle doesn't do anything that everyone else isn't already doing. Dinners, drinks, bottles of scotch, tickets to baseball and football games, plane tickets to attend training sessions in conference rooms attached to nice beachside hotels, business lunches at strip clubs, Superbowl tickets, cruise tickets, wristwatches... Not to mention mugs, tshirts, water bottles and stickers. Everything is on the menu.

grokcodec 2mo ago

It isn't known as One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison for nothing.