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Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

tuananh.net

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Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#31

Post by samrus »

> The ownership void: If the code is truly a “new” work created by a machine, it might technically be in the public domain the moment it’s generated, rendering the MIT license moot.

Im struggling to see where this conclusion came from. To me it sounds like the AI-written work can not be coppywritten, and so its kind of like a copy pasting the original code. Copy pasting the original code doesnt make it public domain. Ai gen code cant be copywritten, or entered into the public domain, or used for purposes outside of the original code's license. Whats the paradox here?

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#32

Post by microtonal »

mlaretallack wrote: post #18
anilgulecha wrote: post #3

This is precedent setting. In this case the rewrite was in same language, but if there's a python GPL project, and it's tests (spec) were used to rewrite specs in rust, and then an implementation in rust, can the second project be legally MIT, or any other? If yes, this in a sense allows a path around GPL requirements. Linux's MIT version would be out in the next 1-2 years.

Its very important to understand the "how" it was done. The GPL hands the "compile" step, and the result is still GPL. The clean Room process uses 2 teams, separated by a specification. So you would have to 1. Generate specification on what the system does. 2. Pass to another "clean" system 3. Second clean system implements based just on the specification, without any information on the original. That 3rd step is the…

So what if a frontier model company trains two models, one including 50% of the world's open source project and the second model the other 50% (or ten models with 90-10)?

Then the model that is familiar with the code can write specs. The model that does not have knowledge of the project can implement them.

Would that be a proper clean room implementation?

Seems like a pretty evil, profitable product "rewrite any code base with an inconvenient license to your proprietary version, legally".

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#33

Post by thedevilslawyer »

kshri24 wrote: post #17

> The ownership void: If the code is truly a “new” work created by a machine, it might technically be in the public domain the moment it’s generated, rendering the MIT license moot. How would that work? We still have no legal conclusion on whether AI model generated code, that is trained on all publicly available source (irrespective of type of license), is legal or not. IANAL but IMHO it is totally illegal as no per…

That's unpractical enough that you might as well wish for UBI and world peace rather than this.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#34

Post by thedevilslawyer »

kshri24 wrote: post #30
thedevilslawyer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright is not a blacklist but an allowlist of things kept aside for the holder. Everything else is free game. LLM ingestion comes under fair use so no worries. If someone can get their hand on it, nothing in law stops it from training ingestion. We can debate if this law is moral. Like the GP I took agree public data in -> public domain out is what's right for society. Copyright as an artificial concept has gone o…

> LLM ingestion comes under fair use I don't think so. It is no where "limited use". Entirety of the source code is ingested for training the model. In other words, it meets the bar of "heart of the work" being used for training. There are other factors as well, such as not harming owner's ability to profit from original work.

https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2025/07/fair-u...

Both Meta and Anthropic were vindicated for their use. Only for Anthropic was their fine for not buying upfront.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#35

Post by kshri24 »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #33
kshri24 wrote: post #17

> The ownership void: If the code is truly a “new” work created by a machine, it might technically be in the public domain the moment it’s generated, rendering the MIT license moot. How would that work? We still have no legal conclusion on whether AI model generated code, that is trained on all publicly available source (irrespective of type of license), is legal or not. IANAL but IMHO it is totally illegal as no per…

That's unpractical enough that you might as well wish for UBI and world peace rather than this.

Why is it impractical? Github already has a sponsor system. Also this can be a form of UBI.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#36

Post by adrianN »

kshri24 wrote: post #17

> The ownership void: If the code is truly a “new” work created by a machine, it might technically be in the public domain the moment it’s generated, rendering the MIT license moot. How would that work? We still have no legal conclusion on whether AI model generated code, that is trained on all publicly available source (irrespective of type of license), is legal or not. IANAL but IMHO it is totally illegal as no per…

We‘ll have to wait until the technology progresses sufficiently that AI cuts into Disney’s profit.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#37

Post by laksjhdlka »

samrus wrote: post #31

> The ownership void: If the code is truly a “new” work created by a machine, it might technically be in the public domain the moment it’s generated, rendering the MIT license moot. Im struggling to see where this conclusion came from. To me it sounds like the AI-written work can not be coppywritten, and so its kind of like a copy pasting the original code. Copy pasting the original code doesnt make it public domain.…

They say "if" it's a new work, then it might not be copyrightable, I guess. You suppose that it's still the original work, and hence it's still got that copyright.

I think they are rhetorically asking if your position is correct.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#38

Post by zozbot234 »

If you ask a LLM to derive a spec that has no expressive element of the original code (a clean-room human team can carefully verify this), and then ask another instance of the LLM (with fresh context) to write out code from the spec, how is that different from a "clean room" rewrite? The agent that writes the new code only ever sees the spec, and by assumption (the assumption that's made in all clean room rewrites) the spec is purely factual with all copyrightable expression having been distilled out.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#39

Post by kshri24 »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #34
kshri24 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLM ingestion comes under fair use I don't think so. It is no where "limited use". Entirety of the source code is ingested for training the model. In other words, it meets the bar of "heart of the work" being used for training. There are other factors as well, such as not harming owner's ability to profit from original work.

https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2025/07/fair-u... Both Meta and Anthropic were vindicated for their use. Only for Anthropic was their fine for not buying upfront.

This hasn't gone to Supreme Court yet. And this is just USA. Courts in rest of the World will also have to take a call. It is not as simple as you make it out to be. Developers are spread across the World with majority living outside USA. Jurisdiction matters in these things.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#40

Post by _dwt »

mfabbri77 wrote: post #19

This has the potential to kill open source, or at least the most restrictive licenses (GPL, AGPL, ...): if a license no longer protects software from unwanted use, the only possible strategy is to make the development closed source.

Yes, this is the reason I've completely stopped releasing any open-source projects. I'm discovering that newer models are somewhat capable of reverse-engineering even compiled WebAssembly, etc. too, so I can feel a sort of "dark forest theory" taking hold. Why publish anything - open or closed - to be ripped off at negligible marginal cost?
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