> You'll never know if somebody has lifted a bit of code in violation of a license anymore than you would be able to tell if somebody copy-pasted from stack overflow
Sure, there’s a sense in which copilot is just an alternative way of finding these snippets; if someone used Google to find a piece of code then chose to copy-paste it, the result would be the same. The code is out there on the internet, being indexed - and incorporated into training models.
The difference is that Google will (probably, if they don’t just yank the content into a snippet on the Serp) link you to the GitHub source, where the license should be clearly visible, so if you copy paste it you know what you’re doing. Copilot produces the code without attribution.
But it’s a narrower difference than we might actually wish. What is it about google’s pointing you to a line of code in a GitHub repo that absolves Google from any responsibility to tell you that the code it sent you to might be copyrighted? Presumably, when you land on that page you are expected to recognize from context that this is probably licensed code, and go look for the license terms. Why can’t copilot also rely on that same ‘user must recognize that some of the results produced might be copyrighted’ logic?
Worth noting that Google image search has long presented its results under a caption pointing out that the results may be copyrighted and you need to do your own research before using any images it produces based on your query. How different is searching it’s image index and producing potentially copyrighted images it found online, from copilot’s search of ‘how to code’ doing the same thing?
> Why can’t copilot also rely on that same ‘user must recognize that some of the results produced might be copyrighted’ logic?
Google shows you where you can find the copyright and license information. GitHub Copilot does not.
> Worth noting that Google image search has long presented its results under a caption pointing out that the results may be copyrighted and you need to do your own research before using any images it produces based on your query.
Because there's a common misconception that "Google images" are legal to use for any purpose. Afaik, Google has no obligation to correct people on this; nonetheless, they choose to do so.
Google search sends you to where it found the code.
That the copyright and license information are maybe available there is not something Google search actually knows to be the case.
That information might not actually be there, and Google does not care either way.
Similar to photos, There’s maybe a common misconception that code produced by copilot is free to use for any purpose. Is copilot under an obligation to point out that that might not be the case?
> That the copyright and license information are maybe available there is not something Google search actually knows to be the case.
Google sends you to where it found the code, on a best-effort basis. Google can't actually, in the general case, do any better than this. Google is a search engine; it's widely understood that, as a search engine, it looks for things and then tells you where it found them (not where they originated from; that's not what the verb "search" normally means, in English).
> Is copilot under an obligation to point out that that might not be the case?
GitHub Copilot is not branded as a search engine. It doesn't give people the option to identify, or verify, the terms under which the output it produces may be used. It doesn't provide any way of discovering the attribution, even in principle.
Normally, when something is given to you without any copyright markings, without any attribution of any kind, or licensing information, or a source:
• the computer probably came up with it on its own, just from the input you gave it; and
• you're free to use it.
This is not the case. GitHub Copilot goes against the expectations of the user; its UX design is actively misleading. This misconception only exists because Microsoft created it.
Sure, there’s a sense in which copilot is just an alternative way of finding these snippets; if someone used Google to find a piece of code then chose to copy-paste it, the result would be the same. The code is out there on the internet, being indexed - and incorporated into training models.
The difference is that Google will (probably, if they don’t just yank the content into a snippet on the Serp) link you to the GitHub source, where the license should be clearly visible, so if you copy paste it you know what you’re doing. Copilot produces the code without attribution.
But it’s a narrower difference than we might actually wish. What is it about google’s pointing you to a line of code in a GitHub repo that absolves Google from any responsibility to tell you that the code it sent you to might be copyrighted? Presumably, when you land on that page you are expected to recognize from context that this is probably licensed code, and go look for the license terms. Why can’t copilot also rely on that same ‘user must recognize that some of the results produced might be copyrighted’ logic?
Worth noting that Google image search has long presented its results under a caption pointing out that the results may be copyrighted and you need to do your own research before using any images it produces based on your query. How different is searching it’s image index and producing potentially copyrighted images it found online, from copilot’s search of ‘how to code’ doing the same thing?