Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Shamelessly Attacks Both Git and Projects in GitHub, Using Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing (Exit GitHub Now!)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 26, 2023

A mountain of plagiarism

Silhouette of hiker in the Canadain Rockies

TWO readers contacted us regarding GitHub. They contacted us yesterday because of legitimate concerns, not all this "doomsday" stuff (sensationalism which distracts from $9 billion lawsuits for plagiarism, to name just one lawsuit out of several). Ignore the propaganda mill known as OSI; Microsoft pays the OSI to lie and to support plagiarism; today's OSI is effectively contracted by Microsoft to attack the GPL (copyleft) and constantly promote GitHub, which isn't just proprietary but also a war against Free software licensing (striking at the very heart, rendering licence enforcement difficult).

Regarding the readers, they presented different angles. One of them sought to point out that the chatbots and various other plagiarism engines of Microsoft are really not as exciting as Microsoft-sponsored publishers want us to believe, quoting this recent Nitter thread:

Recent papers support that current artificial intelligence paradigm - deep learning - is based on compression. Transformers & diffusion models encode compressed versions of the original data. AI is currently just glorified compression.

Another reader said that Microsoft "continues to illegally harvest and regurgitate copyrighted material in its LLM and is trying to shift the focus away from that activity by blaming the chumps that interact with the results." See what we posted under "Copyright" yesterday evening, notably a post from chatbots booster Matt Rickard [1], worryingly noting that "GitHub recently said it was “re-founding” itself on Copilot instead of git" (the "Git" in "GitHub").

GitHub still lacks a business model. GitHub had several rounds of layoffs this year and even an office shutdown.

Imagine what they will try next...

Microsoft is attacking Git, as it always did, and Linus Torvalds is too scared at the wheel, seeing that some of his bosses at the Linux Foundation are active Microsoft employees, staging a coup against the target of attacks. They can have him fired at any time (see the Sam Altman saga), sans the potential outcry it may (or would) cause. The second link, from International Business Times [2], says that "Microsoft believes it should not be held responsible if people use an artificial intelligence (AI) tool like Copilot to infringe on copyrighted material."

This is the typical "the computer did it" defense, which has long made itself alluring to sociopathic executives, whether they referred to computers and programs as "AI" or something less abstract. I pointed out nearly a decade ago that companies were outsourcing "moderation" (censorship) to algorithms so as to dodge accountability, including lawsuits.

Finally, Walled Culture (Dr. Glyn Moody) [3] speaks of "the fraudulent scheme [which] netted more than $23.4 million" after it "cheated artists".

This is pretty much what all that LLM (not "AI") noise is about. With help from corrupted (bribed) media, they seek to legitimise the hoarding and privatisation (attributions and licences removed) of artists' original works, whether those works are books or paintings or whatever else exists out there, not even in the Public Domain.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. How AI Changes Workflows

    GitHub recently said it was “re-founding” itself on Copilot instead of git. GitHub has always been about the workflow — there are plenty of other hosted git providers, but GitHub was the first to put together pull requests, issues, and collaboration into a single workflow. Re-founding on Copilot is a way to acknowledge that AI will drastically change the developer workflow.

  2. Microsoft Says It Is Not Responsible If An AI Like Copilot Is Used To Infringe On Copyrighted Material

    Microsoft believes it should not be held responsible if people use an artificial intelligence (AI) tool like Copilot to infringe on copyrighted material.

  3. Scammers who made $23.4 million from Content ID must pay back only $3.4 million to cheated artists

    According to another TorrentFreak post, the fraudulent scheme netted more than $23.4 million. Aside from the astonishing success of such a simple scam, what is also noteworthy is that people were complaining to YouTube about it as far back in 2017, but nothing seems to have been done then.

    It is only now that a court has finally ordered the scammers to pay back the money they received to the artists who have been losing out for years. Some 800 people came forward to claim restitution, and they will now be paid the princely sum of $3,365,352.85. As you may have noticed, this seems to leave the odd $20 million in the hands of the scammers. Maybe crime does pay when it’s carried out using today’s dysfunctional copyright system.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part II - Office Breaks Rules, Ignores Courts, Defies Justice
False promises everywhere
IBM - Like Microsoft - is a Dying Company and Perishing Brand ("AI" is a Lie and Decoy)
"Arvind is cutting costs (layoffs, PIPs, forced RTO, etc...) like crazy. IBM offices are closing all over the place in the US."
"Code of Conduct" Invoked When Fedora and Red Hat Users (Since the 1990s) Don't Want to Use Wayland
That is IBM "DEI"
Microsoft Layoffs Next Week: About 10% to be Laid Off in Microsoft Gaming (2 Days Before Independence Day), About 20%+ of XBox Staff
Microsoft is rapidly collapsing
Why Techrights Cannot be Vilified (and Instead It Gets SLAPPed Repeatedly by Microsoft People)
Attack dogs are all "bark"; because they have no actual "bite"
 
The 'Case' of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft is a Lot of Copypasta (Maybe Also LLM Slop) From the Matthew Garrett 'Case'
5RB deserves to know and the matter shall be properly reported in due course (when the time is right)
No, I Don't Want Your Latest XYZ, ThankYouVeryMuch...
Wayland is finally ready?
LWN is a Voice of GAFAM (Through Linux Foundation, Their Front Group or Occupying Force Inside Linux)
remember who the chief editor works for and who sponsors many of the articles
China Keeps Breaking Into Microsoft Systems, So for True Sovereignty, Nations Wary of China Need to Dump Microsoft
Looking at data from Taiwan (not China) and Maharlika (not Philippines, the king is dead and Spain is out), there are encouraging signs
Linux Journal Wants Ads on Its LLM Slop or Ads as 'Articles'
it's basically another BetaNews
How to Kill a Monopoly
in 10 simple steps
Mozambique: GNU/Linux Rose From 0.5% Last Year to 3% This Year
what (or how) statCounter is measuring
Next Month Marks 11 Years Since Our In-Depth EPO Coverage
The same is happening to Microsoft right now
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Campaigns Against Vista 11, Adds 4 New Associate Members Per Day
If more people understood the underlying principles, more of them would flock to Free software overnight
Canonical Seems to Have Culled Some Sources of LLM Slop From Planet Ubuntu
It's like "junk food", it's not information
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 25, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 25, 2025
On "Weak Claims"
For the record, they sent me unjustified threats, repeatedly tried injunctions (censorship)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part I - Burnout and Family Health
more exceptional circumstances
This Month's Mail (MX) Server Survey Shows Microsoft at 0.20% "Market Share"
We need to remind people that desktops and laptops decline (in proportion to other client devices) and at the "back end" GNU/Linux is already dominant and has long been dominant
Links 26/06/2025: Filespooler Guide and Learning to Code
Links for the day
Austrian GNU/Linux Usage Up to About 5% as More of Europe Abandons Microsoft
Since inauguration day the Austrian people have adopted more and more of GNU/Linux
Why the "Wayland People" and "Rust People" Will Lose Hearts and Minds (Same Reasons)
Wayland pushers are fast becoming like "Rust People"
5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
So far this year we've kept all the promises
BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
"Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
Links for the day
Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
Links for the day