3 ms·

It's because it doesn't matter how copyrighted material ends up in a project. If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then th

It's because it doesn't matter how copyrighted material ends up in a project. If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then the lawsuit from the copyright owner can still sink even robustly funded projects. The fact is, open source has much more liability than closed source software does. If copyrighted material ends up inside a private code base it'll be nearly impossible for the owner to discover that and sue.

1dom 10d ago
> If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then the lawsuit from the copyright owner can still sink even robustly funded projects. Do you have many examples of this actually happening that you could share? I really don't see how this issue is going to be feasible for courtrooms to deal with in a world where big tech are bragging about large percentages of all their code being produced by LLMs.
- Gud 10d ago
  Why wouldn't it be feasible for Apple, with an unlimited war chest, to go after Asahi? I am not saying they will, but it is certainly possible for them.
  - 1dom 10d ago
    Because if it's feasible for any company with a war chest to start a court case about a competitor maybe having a matching line of code to theirs via an LLM, then basically every single company with a warchest would be at war with eachother, because they're all using LLMs. Business and code production would grind to a halt whilst basically every big tech company shares it's entire codebase with every other tech company for discovery. It's basically MAD. And if it was feasible, given we've had a couple of years of all the big tech companies heavily using LLMs, there should be some notable court cases by now, surely?
    - justinclift 10d ago
      Heh, sounds like it'd be along the same lines as the SCO Unix kerfuffle back in the day.
    - mschuster91 10d ago
      Mutually assured destruction is what keeps everyone quiet at the moment.
      - cromka 10d ago
        These are very good observations indeed.
- VBprogrammer 10d ago
  In the 90s aircraft manufacturers basically stopped whole segments of the market (anything smaller than a piston twin) due to litigation. I wouldn't be horribly surprised to find we spend the next 10 years fighting about this stuff in court.
  - 1dom 10d ago
    I'm fully aware of lots of times powerful companies have used the courts to protect their business. My point is basically all of the powerful companies are elbow deep in LLMs to the extent of some sort of mutually assured destruction if they were to start court cases like this. LLMs have been firing out a lot of code for a year or 2 now at least, so I would have thought we'd start seeing some court cases by now?
    - VBprogrammer 10d ago
      It's purely conjecture at this point but my gut feeling is most companies are in high spirits about the costs they can save and the benefits it can bring to their own business. I don't think enough time has passed to see really high profile losers. What happens when Infosys starts losing money or Free CAD becomes the next SolidWorks due to LLM driven improvements?
  - mschuster91 10d ago
    The lack of modern small airplane designs, especially engines, is the extensive and thus expensive certification process. Most of what is a "new" airplane usually is derived from a very old, grandfathered design. The only real innovation for small planes is in the electric flight area - when you gotta do a full certification anyway as you're piloting an entirely new drivetrain, you can financially afford to be much more innovative on other parts of the design.
- simoncion 10d ago
  > Do you have many examples of this actually happening that you could share? If by "this" you mean "an LLM [reproducing] copyrighted material", I have one here [0], with the challenge posed and plagiarized response at [1], found via [2]. One wonders how often the "Don't plagiarize, make no mistakes about this!" instruction fails and the LLMs include nontrivial chunks of other people's work into what they emit. [0] <https://infosec.exchange/@zzt@mas.to/117134157775929932 https://infosec.exchange/@zzt@mas.to/117134157775929932> [1] <https://mas.to/@zzt/117122289150514171 https://mas.to/@zzt/117122289150514171> [2] <https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/117134446424182178 https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/117134446424182178>
  - 1dom 10d ago
    > If by "this" you mean "an LLM [reproducing] copyrighted material No. I have absolutely no doubt that happens, and I'm not defending it or encouraging it. My point is whilst it technically might be illegal and happening all the time, if it's unenforceable or sets a precedence that would severely break the business world, there's every chance nobody would dare bring it to a court room. I'm not aware of it happening yet (someone trying to enforce copyright on code that was put in production via an LLM) and I would have thought if it did, we would all know about the precedence now.
    - simoncion 10d ago
      > ...someone trying to enforce copyright on code that was put in production via an LLM... AIUI, in the US something that's entirely machine-generated is not eligible for copyright protection. If one could demonstrate that that machine-generated output is plagiarized human work and were rich enough to bring it to court, and able to wait five to ten years for the outcome, I have to believe that the usual copyvio rules would apply because that's not machine-generated output, it's straight-up unauthorized copying performed by a machine. > My point is whilst it technically might be illegal and happening all the time... If it's illegal, it's illegal. Refusal to enforce the law doesn't make the action any less illegal. Criminals who get away with their crimes are still criminals. [0] > ... if it's unenforceable or sets a precedence that would severely break the business world, there's every chance nobody would dare bring it to a court room. Or the highest court of the land would find a way to misinterpret "related" historical decisions to make the crime retroactively legal, yeah. > ...I would have thought if it did, we would all know about the precedence now. I'm not so sure. For one thing, the courts move really slowly when they're not very motivated to address something. For another, news that paints the twin VC darlings and their "industry" as villainous has a tendency to get buried by any one of a billion hype pieces or minor scandals that they have waiting in the wings. [0] To bystanders who might wish to retort: Yes, I'm very aware that some things that are illegal should not be. I'm also aware that some things that are not illegal very much should be.

1dom 10d ago

> If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then the lawsuit from the copyright owner can still sink even robustly funded projects. Do you have many examples of this actually happening that you could share? I really don't see how this issue is going to be feasible for courtrooms to deal with in a world where big tech are bragging about large percentages of all their code being produced by LLMs.

Gud 10d ago
Why wouldn't it be feasible for Apple, with an unlimited war chest, to go after Asahi? I am not saying they will, but it is certainly possible for them.
- 1dom 10d ago
  Because if it's feasible for any company with a war chest to start a court case about a competitor maybe having a matching line of code to theirs via an LLM, then basically every single company with a warchest would be at war with eachother, because they're all using LLMs. Business and code production would grind to a halt whilst basically every big tech company shares it's entire codebase with every other tech company for discovery. It's basically MAD. And if it was feasible, given we've had a couple of years of all the big tech companies heavily using LLMs, there should be some notable court cases by now, surely?
  - justinclift 10d ago
    Heh, sounds like it'd be along the same lines as the SCO Unix kerfuffle back in the day.
  - mschuster91 10d ago
    Mutually assured destruction is what keeps everyone quiet at the moment.
    - cromka 10d ago
      These are very good observations indeed.
VBprogrammer 10d ago
In the 90s aircraft manufacturers basically stopped whole segments of the market (anything smaller than a piston twin) due to litigation. I wouldn't be horribly surprised to find we spend the next 10 years fighting about this stuff in court.
- 1dom 10d ago
  I'm fully aware of lots of times powerful companies have used the courts to protect their business. My point is basically all of the powerful companies are elbow deep in LLMs to the extent of some sort of mutually assured destruction if they were to start court cases like this. LLMs have been firing out a lot of code for a year or 2 now at least, so I would have thought we'd start seeing some court cases by now?
  - VBprogrammer 10d ago
    It's purely conjecture at this point but my gut feeling is most companies are in high spirits about the costs they can save and the benefits it can bring to their own business. I don't think enough time has passed to see really high profile losers. What happens when Infosys starts losing money or Free CAD becomes the next SolidWorks due to LLM driven improvements?
- mschuster91 10d ago
  The lack of modern small airplane designs, especially engines, is the extensive and thus expensive certification process. Most of what is a "new" airplane usually is derived from a very old, grandfathered design. The only real innovation for small planes is in the electric flight area - when you gotta do a full certification anyway as you're piloting an entirely new drivetrain, you can financially afford to be much more innovative on other parts of the design.
simoncion 10d ago
> Do you have many examples of this actually happening that you could share? If by "this" you mean "an LLM [reproducing] copyrighted material", I have one here [0], with the challenge posed and plagiarized response at [1], found via [2]. One wonders how often the "Don't plagiarize, make no mistakes about this!" instruction fails and the LLMs include nontrivial chunks of other people's work into what they emit. [0] <https://infosec.exchange/@zzt@mas.to/117134157775929932 https://infosec.exchange/@zzt@mas.to/117134157775929932> [1] <https://mas.to/@zzt/117122289150514171 https://mas.to/@zzt/117122289150514171> [2] <https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/117134446424182178 https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/117134446424182178>
- 1dom 10d ago
  > If by "this" you mean "an LLM [reproducing] copyrighted material No. I have absolutely no doubt that happens, and I'm not defending it or encouraging it. My point is whilst it technically might be illegal and happening all the time, if it's unenforceable or sets a precedence that would severely break the business world, there's every chance nobody would dare bring it to a court room. I'm not aware of it happening yet (someone trying to enforce copyright on code that was put in production via an LLM) and I would have thought if it did, we would all know about the precedence now.
  - simoncion 10d ago
    > ...someone trying to enforce copyright on code that was put in production via an LLM... AIUI, in the US something that's entirely machine-generated is not eligible for copyright protection. If one could demonstrate that that machine-generated output is plagiarized human work and were rich enough to bring it to court, and able to wait five to ten years for the outcome, I have to believe that the usual copyvio rules would apply because that's not machine-generated output, it's straight-up unauthorized copying performed by a machine. > My point is whilst it technically might be illegal and happening all the time... If it's illegal, it's illegal. Refusal to enforce the law doesn't make the action any less illegal. Criminals who get away with their crimes are still criminals. [0] > ... if it's unenforceable or sets a precedence that would severely break the business world, there's every chance nobody would dare bring it to a court room. Or the highest court of the land would find a way to misinterpret "related" historical decisions to make the crime retroactively legal, yeah. > ...I would have thought if it did, we would all know about the precedence now. I'm not so sure. For one thing, the courts move really slowly when they're not very motivated to address something. For another, news that paints the twin VC darlings and their "industry" as villainous has a tendency to get buried by any one of a billion hype pieces or minor scandals that they have waiting in the wings. [0] To bystanders who might wish to retort: Yes, I'm very aware that some things that are illegal should not be. I'm also aware that some things that are not illegal very much should be.