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Another I'd like to point out is WINE. WINE already had a strict policy prior to LLMs in that contributors could not have previously worked on Windows at Microsoft, could not have ever so much as looked at any Windows source code leaks, and could not so much as even looked at the source code for ReactOS (a project for making an open source Windows clone) in case any contributors to that project ever worked on Windows at Microsoft or ever looked at a Windows source code leak.
This stance by Codeweavers (the maintainers of WINE) is because they fear their entire project (and therefore their entire business) being shut down by litigation from Microsoft. It's interesting to me that they still see copyright of LLM-generated code as potentially making their project no longer qualify as clean room reverse engineering, while the rest of the industry has effectively pretended that copyright no longer exists even though LLMs can produce the code of open source projects (or the entirety of a Harry Potter book) verbatim: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02671
I'm curious if there's going to be a big lawsuit at some point that completely upends LLMs due to copyright issues that will scare a lot of companies that were previously on the "LLM all the things" train.
One major reason for clean room is that when trying to reimplement a fully-compatible alternative, it's inevitable that some of the code will end up very similar to the original, or even the same. By using clean room, you can establish the creation of an entire new copyright on the work even if it's the same. It's like if two photographers take the exact same photo at the exact same time they each own their own copyright to their respective copies.
On the other hand, for something to be considered infringing in general, it actually has to be shown as a derivative work in the first place. Meaning it has to look similar to the existing work. You can argue abstractly that AI is a plagarism machine, but unless you can point to the part that was stolen (which has happened on a few occasions in the past, but not many) then the courts will tell you to pound sand.
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There was a big controversy over chardet's relicencing, which led to this satirical website claiming to sell delicencing any open source project through clean room implementation by LLMs.
I think there is going to have to be a reckoning. Some confrontation that settles whether copyright is dead letter or not. One might think it's ridiculous to try and attempt to regulate the technology to enforce these norms and totally impractical, but that is what happened with the internet, with the mixed results we know of today.
The main difference I see is that this time, the AI companies are setting a red carpet for the regulators whereas the internet companies were a little bit more circumspect originally. I remember all the hand-wringing about the DMCA, but eventually the Facebooks and the Googles were all too happy to have their section 230 special status.
I think the topline kind of misses the nuance of the situation. If you looked at the code the change wasn't really a refactor or rewrite of the original thing, but basically an entirely new vibe coded package wearing the skin of the old one. I think it's in very poor taste to do that because it's going to break the users, but legally I think there's a decent argument that it's not a derivative copyrighted work.
Is it even possible for LLMs to do clean room implementation of code that, if it is a popular open source library, must have been in their training data? Or rather, since they don't have personhood, can you, in a clean room implementation, use tools that have been made using the very thing you're claiming you have no exposure to?
In a funny twist of fate, it may end up that the only way to protect yourself from having your licence stripped is actually to publicize your code. But really we have not the faintest clue how judges will see it.
There are 2 factors here:
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WINE specifically is in a bit of a 'Caesar's wife must be above reproach' situation: there's a lot of possible futures where Microsoft wants to crush them, they're absolutely critical for mainstream Linux success, and even if they're in the free-and-clear legally, they have to be able to believably tell users that they'll be clear-and-free legally.
There's definitely groups interested in trying to bring copyright lawsuits, including some that have settled, but they're mostly limited to the input side. Getting a hook in on the output side seems naively like it would be rougher, especially given the gimmicks that the authors of that paper have to put in, but something something Musk Cross The Delaware.
This seemed more true in the early 2000s, when the desktop ruled supreme and most desktop software used the Win32 API.
These days, decidedly less so. Most software seems to be based on some toolkit which offers cross-platform support. Desktops lost a lot of relevance to both mobile and web apps. Antitrust bureaus are just waiting for Microsoft to try to sue WINE. (Well, the EU at least. The current US administration would probably be ok with them doing whatever as long as the bribes kept coming.)
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