undefined | Better HN

0 pointsprice4y ago0 comments

> Unless I've crossed the line for criminal prosecution (which is far from anything we're discussing here), the worst-case consequence of that is .... damages.

This is not how the law works. In addition to damages, if you're a party to a civil lawsuit then a court can order you to do something. This is called an "injunction".

For example, if I write something and you start selling copies of it without permission, and I sue you over your copyright infringement, a court can and will order you to stop. Copyright has teeth like that.

If the thing you were selling was your product -- based illegally on my GPL'd code -- then that may be a lot worse for you than some damages.

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

blip543214y ago

I this case, an injunction doesn't force me to do anything. It prevents me from doing something, namely distributing the 10 lines of copilot-regurgitated GPL code in my program.

The solution to that is to remove or replace those lines.

That's not worse than damages. That's just table stakes. That's expected no matter what happens. If I had a few lines of GPL code in a proprietary code base, I'd do that the day it was discovered.

To understand the frequency of injunctions, have a look at this test:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injunction#Permanent_injunctio...

Injunctions generally only happens if other means (like damages) have been exhausted.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse