Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | Tomte's commentslogin

Why do you put a license on it when it‘s obviously not copyrightable?

Why do you think it's not copyrightable? It absolutely is under current US law. OP copied the interfaces, which is perfectly legal, and then defined their own implementations. Even if they are working with an LLM, that process of interactive prompting establishes authorship.

No, LLM output isn't copyrightable.

Did you interact with said output by reviewing it and hitting squash on the PR? Congratulations, it's now a derivative work.

Edit: I stand corrected. It does appear that this is a serious issue.


This hasn't yet been decided, as I pointed out above. The courts have indicated that push button LLM output is not copyrightable, but haven't said anything about larger orchestrations of multiple agents operating over hours or days to produce something with direction from a human.

Given that photographs are copyrightable, I wouldn't hold my breath on projects like this being deemed ineligible for copyright.


This project has zero chance of being eligible for copyright:

> Nearly all of the code, the design docs, and this README were written by Claude

The only way courts will deem LLM output to be copyrightable is if there is substantial human input. Just orchestrating agents won't be enough.


We disagree.

Copyright in compilation would be sufficient alone, requiring no new laws, to my reading. In particular:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_in_compilation

> In the copyright law in the United States, such copyright may exist when the materials in the compilation (or "collective work") are selected, coordinated, or arranged creatively such that a new work is produced. Copyright does not exist when content is compiled without creativity, such as in the production of a telephone directory. In the case of compilation copyright, the compiler does not receive copyright in the underlying material, but only in the selection, coordination, or arrangement of that material.

All my experience seeing orgs ship real production code with the assistance of AI over months/many-thousands-of-commits shows that the skill not only lies in what context you choose to provide in the first place (product and technical specifications, design guidelines, prompting process with the model(s)), but also in how to effectively review and test all of it, which is still done with human direction throughout. This is why people with no experience in coding can't do with AI what an industry veteran with 20 years shipping to production can.

In any case, I think existing reading of copyright law will be sufficient to say that large AI-driven software projects are a process of orchestration and also of curation in selecting what actually gets committed (or, if commit-by-default is enabled, then what to revert). This may not always be true in the future, though, as capabilities increase...one part of me thinks you could just do random stuff like "Make me an excel except every cell is a powerpoint presentation" and a good enough AI would reason through and produce something without further input. But I think in most cases, folks have a real set of requirements in mind, and get all of them into the AI through a process of iteration in various ways. I think that's real work that requires skill and, in many cases, creativity, at least in the sense that someone else walking up to the same tool and prompting on their own would produce a very different output than you'd see if you asked the same person to retry the same project.

Time will tell.


I don't think we disagree that much. But the repo in question had basically no human input, at least no substantial one. It will be interesting where the courts will decide the boundary lies though.

Copyright of aggregated and curated LLM output has not been decided upon, but other curation precedents suggest it is going to be copyrightable, similar to how curated collections of facts are copyrightable, even though facts themselves are not.

I like to use https://youglish.com/ when I have a question about English pronunciation.

that's not what I was asking, I was asking Mr. Fuchs his pronunciation of the color named after the fuchsia flower named after the biologist Dr. Fuchs.

Thank you, just a wonderful website for learning pronunciations!

Because everyone copies it: the word is Dunkelflaute. U, not a.

They need to be, but many plugin developers simply break the GPL.

Issues removed, and a notice: Currently running an internal code audit.

"Gosh, did my LLM just copy Photopea? Lemme see"

„Let me ask my LLM“

Copyright theft machine does copyright theft. Imagine that.

Same here, but the GitHub thread actually calls that out as a known bug. Swipe from the left. Intention is that clicking sonewhere on the map closes the dialog.


It is, but that‘s why I trust Honest Achmed (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647959). He is a man of integrity and will not be bought!




Back issues of The London Review of Books.


I do not know if this is related to this comments but if you are reading The London Review of Books so that you do not have to read the whole book, maybe it is. I do not watch movies much anymore. Sometime though I want to know what a movie is all about. So, I just read the wikipedia plot review on it. It saves me the time by not having to sit through much tedium but I get a scenes of what it is about.

I have been reading The Bible. It has been a long time project and I have a long ways to go. I am much more agnostic that a true believer but it has been interesting. Hearing popular views about it and Christianity vs. reading The Book is sort of like the difference between reading a novel and watching the based on movie.


I am an atheist but I have read a little bit of the bible, mostly early OT. I recommend reading a scholarly / literal translation, because there is a lot of nuance in the Hebrew


Do you have any recommendations for translations? I have been reading from some I just have laying around.

I have been wanting to read Donald Knuth's "3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated".

(https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/316.html)


The King James Version! I'd only recommend modern translations as a second point of reference when trying to interpret a difficult verse, or for looking at how modern critical editions of the NT differ from the traditional Byzantine NT. When a verse is difficult to read in the KJV, that's usually because the original text is difficult/ambiguous. Modern editions tend to pave over those difficult/ambiguous passages with a "clear" but opinionated reading, while the KJV provides a more literal rendering of what's in the source text.

My favorite example: see how all mainstream modern editions (NRSV, NIV, ESV, NASB, CSB, and even the NKJV) say "every man" (or something along those lines), rather than "any that pisseth against the wall" (literal rendering of the Hebrew): https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Samuel%2025%3A22


I do not advise this. It is effectively translating twice: Hebrew through EM English to contemporary English


I personally like the term "biblical English" as a description of the KJV's dialect. It's not really representative of early modern English, as it often uses non-standard grammar to preserve the word order and cadence of the source texts.


I would be less confident about that, there are false friends in EME and most modern readers would benefit from not having the added complication.

(I don't have a theology degree, but I do have an English degree. I have read parts of KJV, and it has literary significance, but it is not attempting to be a bare literal translation)


It's usually pretty obvious when a word means something different than what you think it means, because the verse won't make any sense. And stopping for a moment to resolve that confusion is always a good learning experience. You either learn something about English, about Hebrew/Greek, or about the text's cultural context or how it's been historically understood.


For the purposes of this post, I'm concentrating mainly on English language style, and not the quality of the translation from the original languages. The KJV, though outdated, has good turns of phrase. Many modern translations are lacking when it comes to the beauty of the English. A decent translation stands up as literature in its own right.

* New Living Translation (NLT): My main one nowadays. This one is not for everyone, but I find it very readable and was recommended it online. My one criticism is that the style is a bit too American. It works on a thought for thought basis.

* New English Bible (NEB): I have something of a soft spot for this one. It has the opposite problem to the NLT in that its style is sometimes too British. Nonetheless I always liked its text lay out and style. Sadly it got superseded by the Revised English Bible which is not so good. I mostly come across it second hand.

* New King James Version (NKJV): this one at least retains some of the literary qualities of the KJV while making the text more accessible to a modern audience. It does have some problems (mostly those that afflict other modern Bible versions).

The International Standard Version is online only, but its range of sources has piqued my interest as a study Bible, but its readability seems to vary. I hope it comes out in print.

I have Lorimer's New Testament in Scots. I find it a bit uneven. I know folk who love it.

As for BAD Bible versions, I'd out the following on the naughty stool. The Scholars' Version is gospels only, but is horrendous to read (its version of the Beatitudes says "congratulations to the..." as if they'd won Reader's Digest Prize Draw.) The New World Translation is the Jehovah's Witness version and had clunky prose, making it extremely unpleasurable to read. The Good News Bible is not as annoying as the other two but its English is oversimplified and directed at children and learners. The Message goes for colloquial English and doesn't always work. The Conservative Bible, like NIV and NSRVue allows its political biases in.


I have read 3:16 and it’s really good. Also, it made me want to meet Donald Knuth so I went to his church for Bible study and to his home after service. Great memory.


I found his description of Classical Style very confusing and disorganized. You‘re much better off reading the original, Thomas & Turner.


Consider applying for YC's Winter 2027 batch! Applications are open till November 2.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: