Post #2900935

2026-04-16 00:00 UTC

@bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org @ossguy@fedi.copyleft.org The surprising thing about saying "seriously consider cautiously and carefully incorporating their workflows with ours" is that it doesn't address at all my *biggest* fear: the copyright status of LLM generated contributions seems currently unsettled. I know there's been assertions to the contrary floating around: the Supreme Court deferred to a lower court in the US. However that is not the same thing as the Supreme Court making a specific decision. And internationally, the copyright situation of output is even murkier... it will take a long time for this to settle. Does Conservancy not think this is the case? I would be surprised if so, but perhaps you all have an interpretation that I am not currently aware of. If there *is* concern, then we hit a serious risk: we may be seeing many contributions with legal status which has *yet to be determined* entering seasoned codebases. And this worries me a lot.

Replies (2)

@cwebber@social.coop 2026-04-16 00:03

@bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org @ossguy@fedi.copyleft.org There are other things I am less worried about. genAI tools used to probe for software vulnerabilities does not lead to contributions of unknown status. Same for using LLMs to explore a codebase. However, there isn't any distinction made in the post, only a "seriously consider cautiously and carefully incorporating their workflows with ours". Does this mean Conservancy currently believes that the matter of genAI output by contemporary LLM tools is a settled matter, in terms of either a) being fully in the public domain or b) being the copyright status of the "prompter"?

Open ##2900936
@bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org 2026-04-16 00:58

@cwebber@social.coop I think maybe you missed https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2026/mar/04/scotus-deny-cert-dc-circuit-thaler-appeal-llm-ai/ where #SFC analyzed that situation? Also, follow @ai_cases@mastodon.social & see the *firehose* of litigation on this & remember the “Work Based on the Program” issue under GPLv2 has still never been litigated directly but lots of cases about 100% proprietary software have bolstered GPL's strength. Big Content has legal battles with Big Tech on 100s of fronts rn. Yes, we're adrift on their sea, but the situation is not as dire as you imagine. #AI #LLW

Open ##2900937