[_Understated_]

> You can wipe your ass with the GPL license if your use of the product falls within Fair Use.

Is Copilot fair use? It's reading code, generating other code (some verbatim) and making money from it all while not having to release its source code to the world?

> That doesn't mean that GitHub has to redistribute Copilot under GPL

I wasn't saying that was the case: some of the code that Copilot used may not allow redistribution under GPL.

But let's say that all of the code it scanned was GPL for the sake of argument. Why would they not have to distribute their Copilot source yet, if I use it to generate some code, I'd have to distribute mine?

My spidey-sense it tingling at that one!

[tshaddox]

> Is Copilot fair use? It's reading code, generating other code (some verbatim) and making money from it all while not having to release its source code to the world?

Again, fair use is an exception to copyright protection. If something is fair use, the license does not apply. The fact that Copilot does not release its source code is related only to a specific term of a specific license, which does not apply if Copilot is indeed fair use.

[8note]

Making money is irrelevant to fair use

[ghoward]

Totally relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#1._Purpose_and_charac... .

[zelphirkalt]

Irrelevant to GPL maybe.