If your close-sourced project uses some GPL code, it doesn't automatically put your whole project in public domain or under GPL. It just means you're infringing the right of the code author and they can sue you (for money and stopping using their code, not for making your whole project GPL).

In the simplest terms, GPL is:

    if codebase.is_gpl_compitable:
        gpl_code.give_permission(code_base)
    else if codebase.is_using(gpl_code):
        throw new COPYRIGHT_INFRINGEMENT // the copyright owner and the court deal with that with usual copyright laws

Similarly, AI code's copyleft status can't affect the rest of the codebase, unless we make new laws specifically saying that.

Also similarly, even if Github lost the class action, it will NOT automatically release the model behind GPL to the public. It will open the possibility for all the GPL repo authors to ask Microsoft for compensation for stealing their code.

they can sue you and settle for whatever you will accept that makes them happy.

if you lose then the alternative to not making your code GPL is to make your code disappear, that is you are no longer allowed to sell your product.

consequently, if AI code is subject to the GPL then the rest of the codebase is too, or the alternative would be that the could not be distributed.

Secondly, GPL can't "make your (proprietary) code disappear." Violating GPL is essentially just stealing code. One cannot distribute the version that includes stolen code. But they can remove the stolen part and replace it with their own code. Of course they still need to settle/pay for the previous infringement.

GPL simply can't affect the copyright status of rest of the codebase, because it's a license, not a contract. It cannot restrict the user's right further than the copyright laws.

Again, it's very common misunderstanding of GPL's "virality." It has been a several-decade long debate about whether GPL should be treated like a contract instead of a mere license, but there is no ruling giving it this special legal state (yet), at least in the US.

[0]: https://lwn.net/Articles/61292/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Leg...

if AI generates something that is equal to existing code, then the license of that code applies. the AI generated product as a whole can't be copyrighted, but the portions that reproduce copyrighted code retain the original copyright.

they can remove the stolen part and replace it with their own code

sure, if they can do that, then they can distribute their code again. but until then they can't.

No, it doesn't, if the generation is independent of the existing code. If a person using AI uses existing code and makes a literal copy of it, then, yes, the copyright (and any license offer applicable in the circumstances) of the existing code may apply (it may also not, the same as with copies of portions of code made by other means), and it's less than clear if (especially for small portions of code) that legally such a copy has been made when a work is in the training set.

Copyright protects against copying. It doesn't protect against someone creating the same content by means other than copying.

well, that's the big question, isn't it? if the code is used for training AI and the AI reproduces the same code, is that really independent?

i don't think so.

Copyright protects against copying. It doesn't protect against someone creating the same content by means other than copying.

if the code is the same, how do you prove it's not a copy?

it's the same problem as with plagiarism, isn't it?

if AI has seen that code in training, then this defense is no longer possible.