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by chrismorgan
1373 days ago
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> my AGPL code To repeat what I keep saying in these cases: there’s nothing special about the particular license you use, if it still has pretty much any condition. If Copilot is subject to copyright restrictions, MIT-licensed code is affected just as much as AGPL-licensed code: Copilot is still not meeting (and cannot meet) the condition of the license, attribution. Copilot depends entirely upon exemption from copyright restrictions under “fair use” exceptions. But still, you’re quite welcome to issue takedown notices, though I don’t know if the regular process is actually appropriate (given that it’s a GitHub project rather than a project hosted on the GitHub platform). Their reaction might be interesting, though I expect they will just declare the notice invalid because of fair use exemptions and ignore it. |
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I'll approximate: Contract violations are okay if they result in no damages. Courts determine damages by harm done. This comes down to a lot of detailed issues, including things like intent. Licenses are more complex, and I'll ignore issues like statutory damages.
A lot of licenses are GPL-compatible because although the terms differ in phrasing, the GPL has provisions which are substantively the same (e.g. attribution versus copyright notice). Courts won't care.
MIT signals one intent, and AGPL signals another. That's a big difference. I have code under AGPL, GPL, and MIT, and in the case of the AGPL code being ripped off by copilot, it undermines a lot of the purpose of having licensed the code as AGPL if others can use it without that license. For the MIT code, a lack of copyright notice+attribution would typically be mild annoyance at best.
A court would pick up on that, and act accordingly.