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Comment by Liquix | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully this is high profile enough to incur some consequences. GPL is ironclad on paper, but the sad reality is unscrupulous/international companies can and do just copy code directly off github into their products with no repercussions

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Unless a major contributor of OBS sues, nothing will come of it. That's unfortunately very rare, the only one doing that with any frequency seems to be Harald Welte (one of the iptables developers) [1]

1: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases#Wel...

Here is a copy of my other comment in the thread, which I think is relevant to your post too:

I thought the latest lawsuit from Software Freedom Conservancy was interesting, they are suing as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL (not as a copyright holder, although they probably could do that too in this case) and seeking specific performance of the GPL violator (Vizio) and of course legal costs, but no damages. The specific performance they want is of course GPL compliance. As part of the case, they are basically saying that the GPL is a contract and the contract says that third-parties can get benefits and so they want those benefits. Frankly this is a brilliant case and if they win the precedent will allow anyone to sue over GPL violation. If any trolls try it, all they get is GPL compliance, so they have no incentive to try it.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

Couldn't the FSF sue on their behalf?

On what grounds? The FSF has no standing to sue like that. The software freedom conservancy has lawyers who will work on copyleft infringement cases like this but a copyright holder still has to step forward as a plaintiff.

They could just provide legal support without being the plaintiff. They have done so before (or rather the Software Freedom Conservancy (Conservancy)):

>That is how the FSF and Conservancy have always handled compliance. The FSF has done compliance work for the GNU Project for decades, and in all that time, we have only been forced to file a lawsuit once. The suit came about after years of working with the violator trying to correct their compliance. Even in that instance, where the FSF eventually did have to sue, the violator later went on to become a contributor to the GNU Project, and continued other free software activities as well. Conservancy has a similar track record of avoiding lawsuits; they are currently funding Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in Germany, which marks the first time Conservancy has ever been involved with a lawsuit regarding Linux, and their FAQ explains the lawsuit came after four years of friendly efforts by many parties asking VMware to follow the GPL's requirements.

https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2016/fall/the-role-of-lawsuits-...

>Conservancy maintains this FAQ list regarding Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in Germany over alleged GPL violations on Linux as a service to the Free Software community, and in particular, the copyleft community. Conservancy realizes this lawsuit generates many questions and interest from the community. Legal counsel (both Conservancy's own, and Christoph's lawyer, Till Jaeger) correctly advise us to limit our public comments regarding specific details of the case while litigation remains pending in court.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vmware-lawsuit...

The copyright holders can delegate the ability to sue to others, so FSF could do that if delegated. Software Freedom Conservancy have a similar delegation and copyright aggregation programs for Linux and Debian developers:

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/

No, only the copyright holder. If it were an FSF program where they owned the copyright then they would (this is one of the reasons the FSF requires copyright assignment).

Consider donating to the EFF as a Christmas present to yourself

eff doesn't do license enforcement. Software freedom conservancy is the organization to support in this case: https://sfconservancy.org/

https://fsf.org as well.

sflc as well

https://softwarefreedom.org/services/

The EFF lost all credibility by jumping into the crypto bandwagon

What did they do?

If the above poster never replies, I would assume that they're referring to (from a quick google) the fact that the EFF opposes laws that would put liabilities for blockchain software on the software author[1], and provides other similar defenses, similar to how the ACLU occasionally defends the free speech of white supremacists[2], to ensure equal protection under the law and avoid setting a bad legal precedent.

[1] https://www.eff.org/issues/blockchain

[2] https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/defending-speech-w...

edit: Specifically, they probably mean the EFF's opposition to the crypto surveillance provision in the Biden infra bill:

(Summary) https://twitter.com/eff/status/1422337127556157444

(Article) https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/cryptocurrency-surveil...

Huge props to both groups then. Selectively enforced rights aren't rights at all.

Is there an organization that sues on behalf of OpenSource/GPL software? FSF? EFF Maybe?

And now they can also claim it was just autocompleted by Copilot.

Using a tool to violate copyright isn't a valid legal defense.

There is a "data minig" exception from copyright law, saying that you can use any available code to feed your AI and don't have respect the license. And the output of your AI is yours. So TikTok could claim they either use Copilot, which was fed OBS source, or that they created their own private AI similar to Copilot. Microsoft showed the way.

It hasn't been tested at court AFAIK, but if a company can use this defense to protect their profits, for sure they will try.

Is there?

Can you point it out to me? I’ve looked, but haven’t been able to find it. I imagine it’d be somewhere on this page, in section 107 or later [0], but I haven’t actually found a clause which looks like it either has the intent or side-effect of making “data minig” exempt from having to obey copyright requirements.

[0]: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

In the UK there is a data mining exemption to copyright for non-commercial research if you otherwise have "lawful access" to the work [1] but it clearly wouldn't cover something like copilot and just allows you to build the model. It doesn't give you a copyright exemption if the outputs of the model would otherwise be infringing on the copyright of the input material.[2]

[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright#text-and... [2] That is to say it is not mentioned, and to give you such an exemption it would need to be mentioned. Hasn't been tested in court either as far as I am aware

It's literally the first search result for "data mining exception": https://www.copyrightuser.org/understand/exceptions/text-dat...

This is about EU and UK, but think about it, Microsoft Copilot is already doing it, and so far it seems like they will get away with it. So if feeding an open source code into AI and then using the output in a proprietary application is illegal in the US, then Copilot must be illegal. According to wikipedia in the US it falls under fair use because it is "transformative" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining#Situation_in_the_U... however Copilot has been seen producing verbatim blocks of code matching some open source projects and so far no legal problems. Why couldn't TikTok claim the same?

Local exceptions are a bad bet when dealing with global distribution.

I really don't think Microsoft Copilot is relying on a local exception.

The legal exception is only in a couple jurisdictions, most of the world they'd still be liable.

That's not plausible

Hey, just because it would get laughed out of court, that doesn't mean they can't claim it!

I‘m not so sure about it being laughed out of court unfortunately.

Can concur, courts don't know jack about tech and have to rely on experts that aren't always independent.

Rebutting the argument doesn't rely on tech knowledge.

“But, your honour, I didn't copy this person's book! I used the autocomplete on my phone, and it just so happened to produce their 500 000 word novel!”

You need tech knowledge to think that's even plausible. Sure, they wouldn't dismiss it out of hand (I think “laughed out of court” is a figure of speech), but I wouldn't be surprised if it got a few giggles.

This would be more like GPT-3 completing a specific novel.

ISTR someone used GPT-3 to autocomplete a chapter of Harry Potter.

And doing so is still copyright infringement.

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