Re:GitHub’s AI Copilot Might Get You Sued If You Use It
by basch on Friday July 09, 2021 @10:15AM
(#27783871)
>Still though you have to cite the ideas
That's not because of copyright though, that is due to academic standards. Legally you can paraphrase without citing a source.
And from a legal perspective, an entire book of nothing but unsourced quotes from many works would probably end up being both transformative and using a minimal percent of each source.
That said, an argument for citing: if copilot was using public code, and not keeping a record of its sources, it might put someone in a spot where they dont know what risk they are exposed to. A citation log would both let you know what your sources are, and as a defense if accused of using something. The question becomes, going back to copyright, what if copilot learns a language, and then produces identical code to someone else, because that line of code is the most efficient obvious way to do something.
That's not because of copyright though, that is due to academic standards. Legally you can paraphrase without citing a source.
And from a legal perspective, an entire book of nothing but unsourced quotes from many works would probably end up being both transformative and using a minimal percent of each source.
That said, an argument for citing: if copilot was using public code, and not keeping a record of its sources, it might put someone in a spot where they dont know what risk they are exposed to. A citation log would both let you know what your sources are, and as a defense if accused of using something. The question becomes, going back to copyright, what if copilot learns a language, and then produces identical code to someone else, because that line of code is the most efficient obvious way to do something.