DeVault: GitHub Copilot and open source laundering [LWN.net]

DeVault: GitHub Copilot and open source laundering

Posted Jun 24, 2022 21:12 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
In reply to: DeVault: GitHub Copilot and open source laundering by Vipketsh
Parent article: DeVault: GitHub Copilot and open source laundering

The major considering factor in this case for me (IANAL) is that if "AI models" are allowed to reproduce code verbatim then there is a legally sound method to de-license any and all code: Take something similar to copilot train it with the code you would like to de-license and then get your device to reproduce it. That is clearly not acceptable, yet it is what copilot does in some cases.

No, because copyright is fundamentally path independent. All that is needed is to show that an identifiable part of copyrighted work A shows up in work B. Once the author of work A has shown that, a copyright violation is assumed, and it's up to the author of B to provide a specific defense for why it isn't a copyright violation. There are valid defenses, but laundering the code through an AI is not one of them.

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DeVault: GitHub Copilot and open source laundering

Posted Jun 25, 2022 6:00 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

Clarification: Copyright is path-independent, provided that a path actually exists. In theory, you do have to show that the defendant had access to the copyrighted work, and that this somehow affected the contents of the allegedly infringing work. But in practice, this is a very weak requirement. You don't have to make specific claims about exactly what the defendant did or the path they took from A to B. You just have to show that the path probably exists. OTOH, if the defendant can plausibly argue lack of access (e.g. "Your code was proprietary, and I couldn't read it even if I wanted to"), then that is a valid defense to copyright infringement (provided, of course, that the finder of fact believes this argument).