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Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

Copilot is trained on and returns AGPL code verbatim. It’s game over. If these licenses are not enforced it defeats the entire purpose.

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That's a problem of the licensers, not for Microsoft or the CoPilot users.

If you released AGPL code but never intended to ever sue anyone. Why did you release it like that?

If you did and if someone is able to use your code without any damage to you, without reputation loss, and via a way they have access to the innocent infringer defense after you overcome fair use, after you sue them.

How is that game over?

So suppose you go out and about and a Microsoft representative punches you in the face. Now, the Microsoft representative has a billion dollar corporation backing him, willing to defend him at all cost through every institution, while you're just John Doe who went on a trip.

If you ever went on a hike but never intended to sue anyone. Why did you go out in the first place?

If you did and someone is able to punch you in the face without any lasting damage, without reputation loss, and via a way they have access to the myriad legal defenses you couldn't come up with if you tried, after you sued them.

How is that game over?

Just because someone corporation is, because of its sheer size, over the law (as far as a John Doe is concerned anyways), does that make it a right? We could probably do away with laws at that point and just accept getting punched in the face by Microsoft whenever they feel like it as the new reality.

You have gone off the deep end, please return to sanity.

The court system is the method of enforcement for copyright.

If you want the "right" in copyright, you have to sue people.

To sue people, you need to find infringement. That infringement must be above fair use.

However - if the infringement you find is so minor that you have no loss of revenue or reputation, a court will not award you damages, and may even dismiss the case.

Nobody has any copyright without suing people, there is no copyright police in the general case.

Microsoft has no special rights from its size. Its size makes it a target, it's not beneficial. It's why they have so much trouble with internal rules about GPL. If I infringe on your copyright, the damages will be zero or low, if Microsoft infringes your copyright, the damages could be millions - with the same burden of proof.

Microsoft is using agpl code, therefore their code is subject to it. A lack of damages doesn’t give one the right to ignore licenses. If it does, like I mentioned it defeats the entire point.

The vast majority of GPL violations are not enforced, because those who would want to enforce them are small and their opponents are big.

For Copilot to blow up, it'd need to be licensed code from a big company demonstrably turning up in a product of a competitor, or some similar event.

It might be the case that it is fair use to train the model on public data, but the code which it produces is covered by AGPL. Github limits liability in its TOS.

(I am not a lawyer).

Folks really should take their GPL code to a platform with similar ideals and stop propping up Microsoft GitHub.

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