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Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. It is not directly using your code any more than pro

Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. And that is why this lawsuit is dead on arrival.

lamontcg 4y ago
> but snippets of it cannot Yeah they can, and the whole functions that Copilot spits out are quite obviously covered by copyright. > especially when they are used in a different context. That doesn't matter.
Cort3z 4y ago
Just to be clear; I cannot prove that they have used my code, but for the sake of argument, lets assume so. They would have directly used my code when they trained the thing. I see it as an equivalent of creating a zip-file. My code is not directly in the zip file either. Only by the act of un-zipping does it come back, which requires a sequence of math-steps.
- Filligree 4y ago
  But there is no equivalent of "unzipping" for Copilot. This is a generative neural network. It doesn't contain a copy of your code; it contains weightings that were slightly adjusted by your code. Getting it to output a literal copy is only possible in two cases: - If your code solves a problem that can only be solved in a single way, for a given coding style / quality level. The AI will usually produce the same result, given the same input, and it's going to be an attempt at a solution. This isn't copyright violation. - If 'your' code has actually already been replicated hundreds of times over, such that the AI was over-trained on it. In that case it's a copyright violation... but how come you never went after the hundreds of other violations?
  - account42 4y ago
    There is no guarantee that a ML network only produces the input data under those two conditions. But even for > If 'your' code has actually already been replicated hundreds of times over, such that the AI was over-trained on it. In that case it's a copyright violation... but how come you never went after the hundreds of other violations? Replication is not a violation if the terms of the license are followed. Many open source projects are replicated hundreds of times with no license violation - that doesn't mean that you can now ignore the license. But even if they did violate the license, that doesn't give you the right to do it too. There is no requirement to enforce copyright consistently - see e.g. mods for games which are more often than not redistributing copyrighted content and derivatives of it but usually don't run into trouble because they benefit the copyright owner. But try to make your own game based on that same content and the original publisher will not handle it in the same way as those mods. Same for OSS licenses: The original author does not lose any rights to sue you if they have ignored technical license violations by others when those uses are acceptable to the original author.
andrewmcwatters 4y ago
This is demonstrably false. It is a system outputting character-for-character repository code.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33457517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33457517
- pmarreck 4y ago
  It can be modified to not do that (example: mutating the code to a "synonym" that is functionally but not visually identical). It can also be modified to be opt-in-only (only peoples' code that they permit to be learned on, can use the product)
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Perhaps you are right, and it could be so modified. Could be, but isn’t. And that matters.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    plagiarism with some words swapped is still plagiarism
- naikrovek 4y ago
  - xigoi 4y ago
    Individual words can't be copyrighted.
- adriand 4y ago
  If I use Photoshop to create an image that is identical to a registered trademark, is the rights violation my fault or Adobe’s fault?
  - kyruzic 4y ago
    No because that's not a trademark violation in anyway. Using GPL code in a non GPL project is a violation of copyright law though.
heavyset_go 4y ago
Neutral nets can and do encode and compress the information they're trained on, and can regurgitate it given the right inputs. It is very likely that someone's code is in that neural net, encoded/compressed/however you want to look at it, which Copilot doesn't have a license to distribute. You can easily see this happen, the regurgitation of training data, in an over fitted neural net.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  > which Copilot doesn't have a license to distribute when you upload code to a public repository on github.com, you necessarily grant GitHub the right to host that code and serve it to other users. the methods used for serving are not specified. This is above and beyond the license specified by the license you choose for your own code. you also necessarily grant other GitHub users the right to view this code, if the code is in a public repository.
  - eropple 4y ago
    Host that code. Serve that code to other users. It does not grant the right to create derivative works of that code outside the purview of the code's license. That would be a non-starter in practice; see every repository with GPL code not written by the repository creator. Whether the results of these programs is somehow Not A Derivative Work is the question at hand here, not "sharing". I think (and I hope) that the answer to that question won't go the way the AI folks want it to go; the amount of circumlocution needed to excuse that the not actually thinking and perceiving program is deriving data changes from its copyright-protected inputs is a tell that the folks pushing it know it's silly.
    - naikrovek 4y ago
      copilot isn't creating derivative works: copilot users are. the human at the keyboard is responsible for what goes into the source code being written. to aid copilot users here, they are creating tools to give users more info about the code they are seeing: https://github.blog/2022-11-01-preview-referencing-public-code-in-github-copilot/ https://github.blog/2022-11-01-preview-referencing-public-co...
xtracto 4y ago
Say you publish a song and copyright it. Then I record it and save it in a .xz format. It's not an MP3, it is not an audio file. Say I split it into N several chunks and I share it with N different people. Or with the same people, but I share it at N different dates. Say I charge them $10 a month for doing that, and I don't pay you anything. Am I violating your copyright? Are you entitled to do that? To make it funnier: Say instead of the .xz, I "compress" it via π compression [1]. So what I share with you is a pair of π indices and data lengths for each of them, from which you can "reconstruct" the audio. Am I illegally violating your copyrights by sharing that? [1] https://github.com/philipl/pifs https://github.com/philipl/pifs
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  I was thinking of something similar as a counter argument and lo and behold, it’s a real thing maths has solved with a real implementation.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  What you are actually giving people is a set of chords that happen to show up in your song, the machine can suggest an appropriate next chord. It’s also smart enough to rebuild your song from the chords _if you ask it to_.
  - varajelle 4y ago
    I take your code and I compress it in a tar.gz file. Il call that file "the model". Then I ask an algorithm (Gzip) to infer some code using "the model". The algorithm (gzip) just learned how to code by reading your code. It just happened to have it memorized in its model.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Yeah, and that’s completely fine. I’ve seen this point made before, but it assumes you use the entire input as output, which is silly.
moralestapia 4y ago
Whatever you say man :^) https://twitter.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 https://twitter.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554
klabb3 4y ago
> Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. This is kinda smug, because it overcomplicates things for no reason, and only serves as a faux technocentric strawman. It just muddies the waters for a sane discussion of the topic, which people can participate in without a CS degree. The AI models of today are very simple to explain: its a product built from code (already regulated, produced by the implementors) and source data (usually works that are protected by copyright and produced by other people). It would be a different product if it didn't have used the training data. The fact that some outputs are similar enough to source data is circumstantial, and not important other than for small snippets. The elephant in the room is the act of using source data to produce the product, and whether the right to decide that lies with the (already copyright protected) creator or not. That's not something to dismiss.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nickelpro 4y ago
  It's not something to dismiss but it is something that has already been addressed. Authors Guild v Google. Google Books is built upon scanning millions of books from libraries without first gaining permission from copyright holders, this was found to not be a violation of copyright. Building a product on top of copyright works that does not directly distribute those works is legal. More specifically, a computer consuming a copyright work is not a violation of copyright.
  - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
    At the time the suit was launched, Google search would only display snippet views. The very nature presents the attribution to the user, enabling them to separately obtain a license for the content. This would be more or less analogous to Copilot linking to lines in repositories. If Copilot was doing that, there wouldn't be much outrage. The fact that they are producing the entire relevant snippet, without attribution and in a way that does not necessitate referencing the source corpus, suggests the transgression is different. It is further amplified by the fact that the output itself is typically integrated in other copyrighted works.
NicoleJO 4y ago
You're wrong. See exposed code. https://justoutsourcing.blogspot.com/2022/03/gpts-plagiarism-links.html?m=1 https://justoutsourcing.blogspot.com/2022/03/gpts-plagiarism...
ouid 4y ago
it is essentially a weighted sum of your code and other copyright holders code. Do not let the mystique of AI fool you. Copilot does not learn, it glues.
vkou 4y ago
> It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. So what? Why shouldn't we update the rules of copyright to catch up to advances in technology? Prior to the invention of the printing press, we didn't have copyright law. Nobody could stop you from taking any book you liked, and paying a scribe to reproduce it, word for word, over and over again. You could then lend, gift, or sell those copies. The printing press introduced nothing novel to this process! It simply increased the rate at which ink could be put to pages. And yet, in response to its invention, copyright law was created, that banned the most obvious and simple application of this new technology. I think it's entirely reasonable for copyright law to be updated, to ban the most obvious and simple application of this new technology, both for generating images, and code.
tevon 4y ago
I agree. If I read JRR Tolkien and then go and write a fantasy novel following a unexpected hero on his dangerous quest to undo evil, I haven't infringed, even if I use some of Tolkien's better turns of phrase.
- Filligree 4y ago
  Hmm. Are you sure that's true?
- LtWorf 4y ago
  Games aren't even allowed to use the word "hobbit" without paying royalties. I'm sure you completely ignore what you're talking about.
civilized 4y ago
> Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. Completely incorrect. False dichotomy. It's widely known that AI can and does memorize things just like humans do. Memorization isn't a defense to violating copyright, and calling memorization "adjusting a generative model" doesn't make it stop being memorization. If you memorized Microsoft's code in your brain while working there and exfiltrated it, the fact that it passed through your brain wouldn't be a defense. Substituting "generative model" for "brain" and the fact that it's a tool used by third parties doesn't change this.

lamontcg 4y ago

> but snippets of it cannot Yeah they can, and the whole functions that Copilot spits out are quite obviously covered by copyright. > especially when they are used in a different context. That doesn't matter.

Cort3z 4y ago

Just to be clear; I cannot prove that they have used my code, but for the sake of argument, lets assume so. They would have directly used my code when they trained the thing. I see it as an equivalent of creating a zip-file. My code is not directly in the zip file either. Only by the act of un-zipping does it come back, which requires a sequence of math-steps.

Filligree 4y ago
But there is no equivalent of "unzipping" for Copilot. This is a generative neural network. It doesn't contain a copy of your code; it contains weightings that were slightly adjusted by your code. Getting it to output a literal copy is only possible in two cases: - If your code solves a problem that can only be solved in a single way, for a given coding style / quality level. The AI will usually produce the same result, given the same input, and it's going to be an attempt at a solution. This isn't copyright violation. - If 'your' code has actually already been replicated hundreds of times over, such that the AI was over-trained on it. In that case it's a copyright violation... but how come you never went after the hundreds of other violations?
- account42 4y ago
  There is no guarantee that a ML network only produces the input data under those two conditions. But even for > If 'your' code has actually already been replicated hundreds of times over, such that the AI was over-trained on it. In that case it's a copyright violation... but how come you never went after the hundreds of other violations? Replication is not a violation if the terms of the license are followed. Many open source projects are replicated hundreds of times with no license violation - that doesn't mean that you can now ignore the license. But even if they did violate the license, that doesn't give you the right to do it too. There is no requirement to enforce copyright consistently - see e.g. mods for games which are more often than not redistributing copyrighted content and derivatives of it but usually don't run into trouble because they benefit the copyright owner. But try to make your own game based on that same content and the original publisher will not handle it in the same way as those mods. Same for OSS licenses: The original author does not lose any rights to sue you if they have ignored technical license violations by others when those uses are acceptable to the original author.

andrewmcwatters 4y ago

This is demonstrably false. It is a system outputting character-for-character repository code.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33457517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33457517

pmarreck 4y ago
It can be modified to not do that (example: mutating the code to a "synonym" that is functionally but not visually identical). It can also be modified to be opt-in-only (only peoples' code that they permit to be learned on, can use the product)
- falcolas 4y ago
  Perhaps you are right, and it could be so modified. Could be, but isn’t. And that matters.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
  plagiarism with some words swapped is still plagiarism
naikrovek 4y ago
- xigoi 4y ago
  Individual words can't be copyrighted.
adriand 4y ago
If I use Photoshop to create an image that is identical to a registered trademark, is the rights violation my fault or Adobe’s fault?
- kyruzic 4y ago
  No because that's not a trademark violation in anyway. Using GPL code in a non GPL project is a violation of copyright law though.

heavyset_go 4y ago

Neutral nets can and do encode and compress the information they're trained on, and can regurgitate it given the right inputs. It is very likely that someone's code is in that neural net, encoded/compressed/however you want to look at it, which Copilot doesn't have a license to distribute. You can easily see this happen, the regurgitation of training data, in an over fitted neural net.

naikrovek 4y ago
> which Copilot doesn't have a license to distribute when you upload code to a public repository on github.com, you necessarily grant GitHub the right to host that code and serve it to other users. the methods used for serving are not specified. This is above and beyond the license specified by the license you choose for your own code. you also necessarily grant other GitHub users the right to view this code, if the code is in a public repository.
- eropple 4y ago
  Host that code. Serve that code to other users. It does not grant the right to create derivative works of that code outside the purview of the code's license. That would be a non-starter in practice; see every repository with GPL code not written by the repository creator. Whether the results of these programs is somehow Not A Derivative Work is the question at hand here, not "sharing". I think (and I hope) that the answer to that question won't go the way the AI folks want it to go; the amount of circumlocution needed to excuse that the not actually thinking and perceiving program is deriving data changes from its copyright-protected inputs is a tell that the folks pushing it know it's silly.
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    copilot isn't creating derivative works: copilot users are. the human at the keyboard is responsible for what goes into the source code being written. to aid copilot users here, they are creating tools to give users more info about the code they are seeing: https://github.blog/2022-11-01-preview-referencing-public-code-in-github-copilot/ https://github.blog/2022-11-01-preview-referencing-public-co...

xtracto 4y ago

Say you publish a song and copyright it. Then I record it and save it in a .xz format. It's not an MP3, it is not an audio file. Say I split it into N several chunks and I share it with N different people. Or with the same people, but I share it at N different dates. Say I charge them $10 a month for doing that, and I don't pay you anything. Am I violating your copyright? Are you entitled to do that? To make it funnier: Say instead of the .xz, I "compress" it via π compression [1]. So what I share with you is a pair of π indices and data lengths for each of them, from which you can "reconstruct" the audio. Am I illegally violating your copyrights by sharing that? [1] https://github.com/philipl/pifs https://github.com/philipl/pifs

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
I was thinking of something similar as a counter argument and lo and behold, it’s a real thing maths has solved with a real implementation.
Aeolun 4y ago
What you are actually giving people is a set of chords that happen to show up in your song, the machine can suggest an appropriate next chord. It’s also smart enough to rebuild your song from the chords _if you ask it to_.
- varajelle 4y ago
  I take your code and I compress it in a tar.gz file. Il call that file "the model". Then I ask an algorithm (Gzip) to infer some code using "the model". The algorithm (gzip) just learned how to code by reading your code. It just happened to have it memorized in its model.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Yeah, and that’s completely fine. I’ve seen this point made before, but it assumes you use the entire input as output, which is silly.

moralestapia 4y ago

Whatever you say man :^) https://twitter.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 https://twitter.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554

klabb3 4y ago

> Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. This is kinda smug, because it overcomplicates things for no reason, and only serves as a faux technocentric strawman. It just muddies the waters for a sane discussion of the topic, which people can participate in without a CS degree. The AI models of today are very simple to explain: its a product built from code (already regulated, produced by the implementors) and source data (usually works that are protected by copyright and produced by other people). It would be a different product if it didn't have used the training data. The fact that some outputs are similar enough to source data is circumstantial, and not important other than for small snippets. The elephant in the room is the act of using source data to produce the product, and whether the right to decide that lies with the (already copyright protected) creator or not. That's not something to dismiss.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nickelpro 4y ago
It's not something to dismiss but it is something that has already been addressed. Authors Guild v Google. Google Books is built upon scanning millions of books from libraries without first gaining permission from copyright holders, this was found to not be a violation of copyright. Building a product on top of copyright works that does not directly distribute those works is legal. More specifically, a computer consuming a copyright work is not a violation of copyright.
- TAForObvReasons 4y ago
  At the time the suit was launched, Google search would only display snippet views. The very nature presents the attribution to the user, enabling them to separately obtain a license for the content. This would be more or less analogous to Copilot linking to lines in repositories. If Copilot was doing that, there wouldn't be much outrage. The fact that they are producing the entire relevant snippet, without attribution and in a way that does not necessitate referencing the source corpus, suggests the transgression is different. It is further amplified by the fact that the output itself is typically integrated in other copyrighted works.

NicoleJO 4y ago

You're wrong. See exposed code. https://justoutsourcing.blogspot.com/2022/03/gpts-plagiarism-links.html?m=1 https://justoutsourcing.blogspot.com/2022/03/gpts-plagiarism...

ouid 4y ago

it is essentially a weighted sum of your code and other copyright holders code. Do not let the mystique of AI fool you. Copilot does not learn, it glues.

vkou 4y ago

> It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. So what? Why shouldn't we update the rules of copyright to catch up to advances in technology? Prior to the invention of the printing press, we didn't have copyright law. Nobody could stop you from taking any book you liked, and paying a scribe to reproduce it, word for word, over and over again. You could then lend, gift, or sell those copies. The printing press introduced nothing novel to this process! It simply increased the rate at which ink could be put to pages. And yet, in response to its invention, copyright law was created, that banned the most obvious and simple application of this new technology. I think it's entirely reasonable for copyright law to be updated, to ban the most obvious and simple application of this new technology, both for generating images, and code.

tevon 4y ago

I agree. If I read JRR Tolkien and then go and write a fantasy novel following a unexpected hero on his dangerous quest to undo evil, I haven't infringed, even if I use some of Tolkien's better turns of phrase.

Filligree 4y ago
Hmm. Are you sure that's true?
LtWorf 4y ago
Games aren't even allowed to use the word "hobbit" without paying royalties. I'm sure you completely ignore what you're talking about.

civilized 4y ago

> Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. Completely incorrect. False dichotomy. It's widely known that AI can and does memorize things just like humans do. Memorization isn't a defense to violating copyright, and calling memorization "adjusting a generative model" doesn't make it stop being memorization. If you memorized Microsoft's code in your brain while working there and exfiltrated it, the fact that it passed through your brain wouldn't be a defense. Substituting "generative model" for "brain" and the fact that it's a tool used by third parties doesn't change this.