Re:GitHub Copilot is not infringing copyright
by dahart on Monday July 05, 2021 @08:40PM
(#27743200)
Yes (as you now know), GitHub’s terms require users uploading code to agree to GitHub being able to both redistribute (“publish”) and reproduce (“copy” / “store”) their code.
The “Terms” link on the copilot page goes directly to GitHub’s TOS, so yes the terms are one and the same.
This question is interesting and I’ll try to help turn the downvotes around, but it might be too late. Anyway, when users agree to allow their code to be “published” by GitHub, they are allowing it to be both copied and distributed. The TOS also says (note the indexing/analysis comment) “This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video.”
The part where GitHub might have trouble (I speculate) is that their TOS doesn’t discuss derivative works, and the input code to copilot could have licensing terms on derivative works that get scrubbed out by copilot. OTOH, if copilot were to guarantee that a chunk of code never resembled one of the original inputs it may be legal to create derivative works from samples under fair use.
The “Terms” link on the copilot page goes directly to GitHub’s TOS, so yes the terms are one and the same.
This question is interesting and I’ll try to help turn the downvotes around, but it might be too late. Anyway, when users agree to allow their code to be “published” by GitHub, they are allowing it to be both copied and distributed. The TOS also says (note the indexing/analysis comment) “This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video.”
The part where GitHub might have trouble (I speculate) is that their TOS doesn’t discuss derivative works, and the input code to copilot could have licensing terms on derivative works that get scrubbed out by copilot. OTOH, if copilot were to guarantee that a chunk of code never resembled one of the original inputs it may be legal to create derivative works from samples under fair use.