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Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by meibo on Saturday July 10, 2021 @05:10PM (#27796500)
It only seems to if you give it no or very little "source" input, like an empty file with a comment that says "// X algorithm".

There's been a lot of bikeshedding on this, but GitHub decidedly hasn't given enough information on how it works and what the training dataset is, and the fair use question definitely needs to be answered, maybe even in court - it's just a matter of time.

Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by MadVikingGod on Saturday July 10, 2021 @07:37PM (#27797251)
What I think is interesting and not talked about in the copilot cases is there is actually two different copyright actions that come from using it.

The first is if GitHub had a license to distribute the code they have learned on. This is assuming that the code it produces is a derivative, which I don't think would be much of a stretch. For this I think most of the licenses that are used, GPL MIT etc, allow for someone to distribute in such a way.

The second is the user of copilot. They would be getting and distributing code where they wouldn't know the original license, but that wouldn't be a viable defense of infringement. To actually comply with most licenses they would have to follow the requirements.

In both cases I don't know if a fair use would really apply. Maybe GitHub could stretch the research aspect, but if you just use the code in your product there is no fair use.

Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by wlesieutre on Saturday July 10, 2021 @07:56PM (#27797336)
> This is assuming that the code it produces is a derivative, which I don't think would be much of a stretch

I don't think that's easily settled. Is the code I write a derivative work of all prior code that I've learned from? The difference (IMO) is that Copilot has a much more precise memory than I do; I couldn't recall the exact text of a code example that I've encountered repeatedly even if I wanted to.

Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by ric2b on Saturday July 17, 2021 @07:32PM (#27869642)
> I couldn't recall the exact text of a code example that I've encountered repeatedly even if I wanted to.

If you could it would be copyright infringement anyway.

Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by orwin on Saturday July 10, 2021 @07:56PM (#27797338)
easy solution: license all the code you write with copilot under AGPL or GPLv3, and you're good.
Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by martindevans on Saturday July 10, 2021 @11:33PM (#27798279)
Not at all, you'd still be violating all the non-gpl licenses. Just because GPL is more restrictive doesn't mean it somehow supercedes all other licenses!
Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by cassonmars on Saturday July 10, 2021 @08:09PM (#27797398)
Not quite, there are far more aggressive licenses on repositories on GitHub, such as SSPL, which in theory by providing the SSPL licensed code, Co-Pilot should be open sourced under the same license to comply.
Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by Hamuko on Sunday July 11, 2021 @10:48AM (#27801255)
Except you're not allowed to relicense proprietary code you found on GitHub under GPL.
Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by Hamuko on Saturday July 10, 2021 @06:04PM (#27796791)
>what the training dataset is

All non-private repositories on GitHub.

Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by brutal_chaos_ on Saturday July 10, 2021 @06:29PM (#27796931)
Is it though? I'd assume that too, but we don't really know, do we? I mean to ask, what have Microsoft stated that leads you to believe this? (Maybe there's a press release I missed?)
Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by teraflop on Saturday July 10, 2021 @06:31PM (#27796942)
Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by ben0x539 on Saturday July 10, 2021 @07:04PM (#27797098)
(this doesn't say they didn't use other sources too, though)
Re:Tool to convert copyrighted music into fair use by tyingq on Saturday July 10, 2021 @09:13PM (#27797736)
"source code from publicly available sources, including code in public repositories on GitHub." (from the copilot home page)

Pretty much says they did also use other sources.