> “If you look at the GitHub Terms of Service, no matter what license you use, you give GitHub the right to host your code and to use your code to improve their products and features,” [Kate] Downing, [an IP lawyer specializing in FOSS compliance] says. “So with respect to code that’s already on GitHub, I think the answer to the question of copyright infringement is fairly straightforward.”
This has some interesting implications – for example, it means I can't mirror somebody else's (open source) code on GitHub without their explicit agreement.
> > “If you look at the GitHub Terms of Service, no matter what license you use, you give GitHub the right to host your code and to use your code to improve their products and features,” [Kate] Downing, [an IP lawyer specializing in FOSS compliance] says. “So with respect to code that’s already on GitHub, I think the answer to the question of copyright infringement is fairly straightforward.”
So any code uploaded by someone other than the copyright holder renders someone liable to be sued for copyright infringement, AFAICS. The only question is whom it makes liable -- the uploader, GitHub (=Microsoft!), or both?
I can see arguments either way: The uploader is clearly infringing by giving away a right that isn't theirs to give. But so is GitHub / Microsoft, for using a "right" they haven't been properly given. So I'm provisionally leaning towards "both".
> I can't mirror somebody else's (open source) code on GitHub without their explicit agreement.
Who is doing the "mirroring" -- you, in uploading the code, or GitHub / Microsoft in actually hosting it, keeping it available for download from their "mirror"[1] site?
___
[1]: Is that even the correct terminology nowadays, when AIUI for lots of projects GitHub is their primary code repository?
So GitHub should immediately take down (and remove from their Copilot learning model!) all *GPL code uploaded by anyone but the ("primary"?) copyright holder.
This has some interesting implications – for example, it means I can't mirror somebody else's (open source) code on GitHub without their explicit agreement.