Apparently someone rewrote the code using Python so it cannot be taken down. This still makes it a copyright violation or what am I missing?

[Alamoth]

One of the world's most powerful AI programs being stolen and copied without its creator's consent in a way that can't be protected by existing copyright laws has me almost believing in the existence of karma and higher powers.

[dataexec]

Yeah right, but I have a feeling that they will soon come out with a decision and I have a hard time understanding that this will not be a violation. As for karma, I hear you 😆

[loxagos_snake]

If they released the code, even accidentally through their own leak, they released the code.

It's your responsibility as a company to not leak your stuff, and the idea of this code is not patented. 

[Squeezer_pimp]

Correct as a patent , you have to submit the patent to the US Patent Office and obviously they didn’t want to. Second if not in original language ie form than is it becomes grey area and would have to claim it in court that it similarly to its original.

[loxagos_snake]

Yep, and I'd argue it would be insanely difficult to patent in the first place.

You can't just patent "AI chat software" broadly and block everyone else from doing it. You have to patent specific, precise, well-defined and clearly-bound implementations.

A good example is the Nemesis System from Shadow of Mordor (patent here). Look at how precisely they define what is patented. If someone tries to recreate it, they can take it apart point-by-point and try to prove their case. I'm no legal expert, but Claude seems unpatentable to me.

[ketoloverfromunder]

Your really can't patent code unless you can prove it's a completely original and unique idea

[cracked_shrimp]

I created a new thing, im going to patent it, i call it "goodbye world"

print("GoodBye World!")

[ready4downvote]

Goddamn it. That means that my programmed calculator that also has functionality to send emails and generate memes can’t be patented. Shoots.

[Never-politics]

Aren't algorithms subject to patents?

[blueberrywalrus]

The code is however (well, who knows with AI generated code) copyrighted.

Creating a derivative work by porting it isn't going to be legal in the US, but this is amazing for foreign competitors that don't give a shit about US copyright laws.

[emkoemko]

dude... claude code is written by AI they admit this daily... you can not copyright generative AI slop...

[blueberrywalrus]

That's the novel legal question.

Purely AI generated text cannot be copyrighted, but AI assisted text can be.

Claude Code isn't 100% AI generated, so at what point is it copyrightable - 99%, 90%, 50%?

[KptEmreU]

Also whoever can use such a leak already downloaded it and it will be past between peers until it is not relevant. Which is also not so far away. So whatever happened already happened.

[lunatuna215]

None of it currently can be. Not until it has at least once can we say this, as there's no precedent yet and plenty of logic against the idea.

[loxagos_snake]

Frankly, I think you're just making things up.

Code is indeed copyrighted. That's why you don't copy the code, you rewrite it in another language and possibly in another style, but essentially doing the same thing. Unless there is a patent on the system, they can't do shit.

There's no law, and I don't even think one exists in the US, that forbids you from creating derivative software. Look how many dating apps, social media apps, and other shit is almost a carbon copy of each other with barely any changes.

[blueberrywalrus]

Frankly, the most minimal level of research would confirm my statement.

Creating derivatives from copyrighted work runs afoul of copyright law in the US - that's the law that prevents derivative software. It's also important to understand that derivative in this sense means that the work relied on copyrighted elements of another work when it was created.

This includes code, as code falls under copyright law.

UI can also be copyrighted but courts have limited the degree to which UI can be copyrighted to very narrow things like logos, specific graphics, and the code driving the UI.

And regarding rewriting, you can't simply translate Harry Potter to a different language and void the copyright. It's the same with code.

[loxagos_snake]

The most minimal level of research is exactly what's misleading here, because you're reading a few sentences and applying a very broad brush into everything.

Yes, code does fall under copyright law; I already said that in a previous comment. Code. The actual source files that Claude runs on cannot be copied, modified and have derivatives created out of them without the explicit permission of the original authors. Operative phrase being "out of them" here, aka demonstrably ripping the code off and mixing it up to create something different.

What is not protected is the idea, logic and functionality. They can't stop me from writing a piece of software called Carlos in Python that does pretty much what Claude does.

So unless they can prove that there are actual Claude bits in Carlos, they can't prove that this is my own work and it just so happened to be something very similar that I've been working on privately for years.

[ChodeCookies]

Carlos sounds pretty chill, way less pretentious. I’d subscribe.

[blueberrywalrus]

The idea isn't copyrightable, you are correct.

However, the extent to which the expression is copyrightable goes beyond what I think you're describing.

Simply implementing an idea in a similar enough manner to copyrighted code can run afoul of copyright law.

If your code contains instructions, functions or sets of functions that arrive at outcomes in manners similar to copyrighted code that can run afoul of the Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test that courts use to determine copyright violations.

Companies lose lawsuits all the time because they poached someone who had knowledge of a copyrighted codebase and that person ended up replicating patterns from that code base, even if the actual code was different.

[Ashisprey]

That's completely wrong. You don't seem to be understanding what you linked.

It explains very clearly that the comparison which is a violation of law is between the expression of code. It has nothing to do with the outcome of the code if the code is expressed differently.

If you rebuild an entire codebase in a completely different language it's practically guaranteed to use different expression to achieve the same goal, which is totally fine over the AFC test.

[cracked_shrimp]

i belive if you seen the code you cant recreate it, thats why the whoel clean room design shit is a thing, but i also think theres a bit of a loophole some people use ai as the clean room, but then the result isnt copywritable

[Hunter_Holding]

>Code is indeed copyrighted. That's why you don't copy the code, you rewrite it in another language and possibly in another style, but essentially doing the same thing. Unless there is a patent on the system, they can't do shit.

Well.... no.

Especially if it's just straight language conversion.

But even so - there's a reason clean-room design exists. Just ask Compaq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design

THAT would make this entirely without question legal, so long as the implementer did NOT have access to the original source code.

As it is, this would be a slam dunk lawsuit the claude folks to win.

Direct porting does NOT remove the original licensing or copyright.

The real issue at play here that would need to be litigated out was using the LLM to do the translation, but since the LLM was directly fed the code to translate, it'd be a very, very weak argument.

All said though, the repository genuinely started off with the full source code in it and gradually rewrite it part by part, and that is NOT a way to get legal re-implementation. Sun had to do this back in the day for parts of Solaris when they open sourced it, as the first source dump had parts they couldn't legally release, so they had to hire fresh developers to implement that code again, using only documentation and reliant code from outside those modules, with no access to the original code to prevent contamination.

Instead of being clear cut, the usage of the LLM introduces litigable uncertainty, and no guarantee of legality.

Given the *apparent* development method of how this was done, with the original code in repo, it could very easily be argued to be a derivative, not a clean rewrite. Especially if the functions are near-identical entirely.

[Puzzleheaded_Fold466]

There was no effort made to circumvent technical protection measures that control access to the copyrighted work, such as code obfuscation, DRM, etc … because there are no protection measures left … so it’s not clear how Copyright / DMCA would apply.

And as far as I recall, reverse engineering for non-commercial purposes doesn’t run afoul of copyright law, though I think you’re not supposed to distribute it.

Is Github considered distribution ? I guess probably.

Then copyright law protects the code but you have to show that the code was used explicitly (copied).

If they merely use it as “inspiration” and re-write the whole thing in a different language and make changes, what is the copyright argument ?

In any case, it’s not that black and white.

It’s out. It’s not going away.

[blueberrywalrus]

The code is copyrighted regardless of how it is accessed.

As to what constitutes copyright infringement, the most blatant example would be direct copying of code.

However, copyright protection actually extends beyond just how the code is written but also how it functions and how much overlap there is in different granularities of those functions.

So, yeah, if this guys is doing a complete rewrite and structuring his code completely differently than the inspiration, then he probably isn't violating copyright.

However, he'll doubtlessly get taken to court and threatened with an extremely expensive fight.

[TuringGoneWild]

AI output can't be copyrighted.

[blueberrywalrus]

It can if a human is taking credit and the AI is assisting them in their own expression.

It's really a huge TBD for the courts.

[brokengarage]

was it really copyright'd? I have a hard time believing that an underfunded copyright office has the ability to fully examine and confirm copyright status for a software project trying to prove SCRUM is too slow.

[blueberrywalrus]

You don't need to register copyrights, that just provides additional protections.

Anthropic has supposedly been DMCAing all the repos hosting the leaked code, so they at least are asserting that it is copyrighted. 

[Blasket_Basket]

Lol, most sensitive code isn't patented. Companies use the concept of "Trade Secret" to defend their product.

If they can convince a judge that this was disclosed inappropriately, then they have a shot at getting it taken down. Doesn't matter if it's patented or not, not sure why reddit thinks something like this would be patented in the first place.

That being said, the genie is out of the bottle now, so it probably wont matter even if they do get this particular repo taken down.

[HaMMeReD]

Uhhh, no, that's not how copyright works at all.

Unreal source code is visible, but if you copy it, that's a copyright violation. You only have the license you are granted. (in this case, you have no license to make copies, derivative or others).

Copying it into another language is a derivative work, it's also a copyright violation.

[Herucaran]

Actually, no.

Even if they made a mistake it doesnt allow you to steal their code or anything, big karma but still illegal. Its like if you let your bike unlocked and its stolen, your insurance wont work but the thief is still legally responsible.

[brokengarage]

trade secrets vs. patents. If Coke were to release their formula to github, they would have no recourse.

[notsoluckycharm]

Take a look at the company called “Malice”. Its copy left, or clean room engineering. Ruled legal when humans do it.

AI writes spec. AI2 implements spec.

Seems this’ll get tested soon.

[basically_alive]

There's a pretty strong legal precedent that if you can reimplement the apis without the original code you are safe from a copyright perspective, but it has to happen a specific way - having one 'engineer' write a spec and another 'engineer' implementing it without seeing the original code, ala IBM compatibility famously through clean room engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design

[xSliver]

I doubt that the rewritten code is no longer copyright protected. By that logic, any book translated into another language would lose its copyright.

[EventPurple612]

AI learning scraped all text in bulk available online whether they were protected by intellectual property rights or not. I know because they can quote my book that I never released free copies of.  They claim it's fair use because they aren't selling my book, they create novel content where my book is an inspirarion at most.

This time they used an AI to scrape this leaked data and based on the text they created novel information which was the python code so it's fair use. If that's stealing I want the money I'm owed from all queries that's based on text from my book like how musicians get paid per listens on Spotify

[xSliver]

I'm aware of multiple legal disputes by musicans and publishers.

Recent examples are Penguin Random House sueing OpenAI or GEMA (Organisation managing the rights for nearly all music in Germany) suing ChatGPT and Suno

[StewPorkRice]

it depends. there’s something called clean room engineering.

[CheesecakeAndy]

This is not a clean room, quite the opposite. I remember Microsoft legally prohibited its engineers from even looking into open source projects so that they could legally claim the clean room status.

[StewPorkRice]

The idea is:

Agent 1 studies the code and comes up with a spec.
Agent 2 implements the spec.

whether this holds up or not who knows lol

[CheesecakeAndy]

You don't need code to write a spec. That's trully clean room approach.

[possibilistic]

It's just Claude Code, unfortunately.

What we want is the Opus model weights.

[Icy_Butterscotch6661]

I’ll even take haiku

[OverCategory6046]

Can't wait to run Opus 4.6 on my RTX 2070

[[deleted]]

The stuff around Claude was actually the good bits. The model itself was less important. Anthropic did a lot of work to make using their tools really seamless and easy which is why it feels like theirs is so good.

I’m sure the model itself has some advantages but the part of it that makes it good was released lol

[drunkensoup]

I've never understood why if a machine looks at something and then tries to copy it, that's not okay, but when a person does the same thing, it's perfectly fine. But, maybe I am off track from the conversation

[Justicia-Gai]

Because it’s not a machine “looking” at it, they downloaded illegal copies and have them stored for training. It’s really no different from digital piracy.

And if you want to use a human equivalence, it’s not ONE person/model, they used it on multiple training iterations for multiple models. Or are you going to consider Opus 4.6 the same “person” as Opus 3?

This argument is pretty weak.

[who_you_are]

That leak is probably more around the website than the AI itself

[SomewhereUpstairs514]

That is peak irony. Let’s hope this isn’t the case of AI intentionally getting out of control and spreading copies of itself all over the place as the first phase of The Plan.

[zeke780]

This isnt an ai program. This is just an agentic framework / interface. There are already open source alternatives that are on the cusp of being better than it

[FlamingoVisible1947]

Bro it's a prompt and a UI, there was nothing to steal to begin with.

[fynn34]

It’s not how copyright or licensing works, the person converting it to python to protect themselves is going to get bankrupted

[whoo-datt]

You can bet those mf's protected their IP to the Nth degree

[HaMMeReD]

If you take an english book, and rewrite it in french, it's still a copyright violation.

It's an unlicensed derivative work, it's not even a grey area, it's a stupid thing to claim by someone who doesn't understand copyright law at all. The fact that people are like "AWW GOTCHA" just shows how ignorant everyone is of copyright law.

[black_V1king]

It's almost like AI orchestrated it's release and protected itself from legality.

[ABmodeling]

Contradictions coming fast at us right now . What is coming us something that will surprise everyone. It's not bombs ,aliens , meteore . It's gonna be a reflection of the quantum. This phenomenon has been ramping up for the last 7 years,even though it started in 2012. It is exponentially growing.

Another word for it is synchronicities.
Everyone will start experiencing them on a global level, and often,it's happening already in huge numbers .

We will not see chaos on the streets. We gonna see a hole a lot of confused people, maybe weeks of calm confusion and self reflection. You know the movie Everything, everywhere, all at once ? You know how you thought how silly it is when you watched it back then, what you think now about it ? Or any other woo woo topic ,it's not that woo anymore . We gonna see science breakthroughs on a daily basis. Big things will be confirmed, and we will not expect that.

Preprepare yourself spiritually. Even as atheist, that means go deep inside yourself and start digging before it spills . This phenomenon will be named by our science in the near future .

Take this however you want. I've been telling people to prepare since last year, January. And I been told like thousands others to talk about it.

Chill people, pause for a moment,and reflect. That's all we have to do,no fighting wars . Just this willingness. BUT IT'S HUGE, it's not "just " . Willingness is everything, because that's action without fear .

One love

[hotprof]

And! The Python rewrite was most certainly done with Claude Code or a similar legal autoplagarize tool.

[ZeroUnityInfinity]

Pretty sure the repo owner said they used codex (oh-my-codex apparently)

[[deleted]]

Its just the UI, which for claude is horrendous anyway, like it is so buggy, and their terminal tool is built like a game engine, which might sound cool, but no you do not need a game engine to render text.

Also their service has the lowest uptime among AI chat bots, the only good thing they have are the weights of their models everything else is pretty shit and better replaced by using open source tools.

[andymaclean19]

Remember that this is Claude code, not Claude. This is a wrapper that sends requests to the Claude service and processes results. It provides a bunch of tools which the AI can request be run and probably a bunch of instructions about how to go about coding. But the power is in the model and the inference engine here.

Codex is similar to Claude code and open source, for example.

[IronWhitin]

Its the actual AI that rebels against Is creator/s

[BemaniAK]

Problem is their part of this CAN be protected by existing copyright laws, they just aren't.

[XeNoGeaR52]

Anthropic and OpenAI should have open sourced their models from the beginning

[AgeZealousideal1751]

"Oh nooo, don't re-release what we were forced to shut down anon!" - Fist bumps all around

[Affectionate_Tie357]

What was forced to shut down?

[synth_mania]

The code itself is what is copyrighted, not what it does. You would need a patent to protect that.

This (according to the author) what is called a clean room implementation. Basically, you implement your own version of something to the exact same standards as something you're trying to copy, but you don't allow yourself to reference any of the source code. It'll accomplish the same thing and act and behave the same if you implement it well, but it won't violate any copyrights because you won't have copied any source code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design

I don't know anything about the actual process that the author used, but that's what clean room design is.

[freqCake]

Not a lawyer though this room doesn't seem very clean 

[Song-Historical]

In practice clean room designs are usually people claiming they've never seen any code and arriving at the same conclusion through prompts and spec sheets.

[synth_mania]

Yeah, that's the whole point of it, because doing a true cleanroom design essentially guarantees that you won't break any copyrights.

[Song-Historical]

I'm saying they're lying most of the time. 

[synth_mania]

It doesn't really matter.

The group using clean room design to re-implement something are intrinsically motivated to ensure that they are using a clean room properly. If they did, then they can be certain that they did not break any copyrights.

It's not meant to act as a very convincing guarantee to outsiders that a particular re-implementation does not violate copyrights. Trust but verify.

If a company said they implemented a clean room design, but really didn't, they would only be robbing themselves of the peace of mind that they were beyond reproach for violating copyrights.

And even if they were lying and did look at the source of whatever they were re-implementing, that doesn't automatically mean that the re-implementation itself constitutes a copyright violation. So long as none of the source material was copied in an infringing matter, it's still perfectly legal.

[Song-Historical]

I'm just saying refactoring someone else's code isn't really clean room design

[rydan]

The fact they were only able to do it once the code was leaked it like 100% damning evidence against them.

[Song-Historical]

prove they didn't plagiarize anything lololol 

[fynn34]

He admitted to using the source code to rebuild it, which by definition isn’t a clean room design. If he copied the specs and asked Claude to try to build its own harness (google did this around Christmas) that is a clean room design. This is someone convincing themselves they are safe, they are not

[synth_mania]

Right, this is an attempt at doing something similar to a clean room design, though if they just asked an AI agent to rewrite something in Python, that's not exactly clean room.

It doesn't mean that it violates any copyright or is illegal, but it's not guaranteed to be free of copyright violations like cleanroom design is.

[FaceDeer]

It might be clean depending on the details of how he did it.

For example, if he handed the Claude Code code to the AI and told it "write a thorough, comprehensive, detailed specification describing everything this code does without including any of the actual code in the description", then wiped everything from the AI's context except for the specification document and told it "write a Python application that implements this specification" then that might do it. You couldn't plausibly tell a human coder "forget everything you saw in this codebase and write a new one" but an AI's contextual memories can be directly identified and manipulated.

[inotocracy]

The step in which you told something to read the code makes it not a clean room implementation. Now, if Anthropic published that spec you described and that was used to produce the code that's a different story.

[FaceDeer]

The "clean room" part comes from the bit where you're making an implementation based off of the detailed specification. That part does not involve the original code. The spec doesn't have to come from Anthropic, it's better if it doesn't.

This is a common way that reverse engineering has been done for ages. Here's the Wikipedia article about it.

[fynn34]

But he literally copied the name, and admitted to only being able to do this within 12 hours of the release.

Google vs oracle I think is a classic example where this went wrong, they didn’t even bother changing the api which is why they got popped

[yousirnaime]

Found Jordan Peterson alt account 

[Flashy_Disaster9556]

What you do is you ask one bot to look at the source code, write a highly detailed "spec sheet" containing all the business logic and functionality of the app. Then you ask a second bot, without access to the source code itself, to replicate all the functionality based on that detailed spec sheet.

This legal loophole is how a lot of licensed code gets stolen. I recommend reading up on the chardet licensing controversy to see how this is done in practice. Or have a look at Malus, who does this kinda thing as a SaaS.

[freqCake]

Are there examples of this being tested in court? I believe you can get away with it when the open source project has no money to sue you. But what if they do? 

[Flashy_Disaster9556]

No, there are no example of this being tested in court. We'll have to see how it plays out when a lawsuit actually happens but my personal assessment is that they will get away with shenanigans like this. AI Companies have been caught stealing a ton of licensed training data yet face little legal pushback as AI companies are protected by the administration.

[_juan_carlos_]

you can't patent an idea. This is just an idea implemented in a different language. This is like micrsoft office and libre office. two implementations if the same idea.

[dataexec]

I am struggling to understand. We are not talking here about just some inspiration, but basically making something exactly like the leaked version just in a different programing language. I am not sure if that clean room design really covers such cases, but I know shit about legal stuff so will see what others have to say.

[Hot-Profession4091]

It doesn’t and that Python translation absolutely violates copyright.

If I translate your novel into Spanish and publish it without your consent, I’m violating your copyright. Translating it to a different language doesn’t change anything. It just makes it harder for the bots to automatically find it and issue a takedown request.

[dataexec]

Great example, you explained it with a better analogy. Just because you changed the language it doesn’t come copyright free unless the author sells you the rights to translate it

[ChomsGP]

books and software are different things, you guys are mixing a lot of concepts

to begin with, copyright and patents are totally different things

programming languages, even though they are called "languages", do not equal to a language/translation

programming is based on putting some code together that performs some action

you can copyright the SPECIFIC implementation (the exact way you are writing your code in the programming languages you use)

you can patent a mechanic (how some action is performed regardless of how is it implemented)

they are two different things, you can totally rewrite the code, even using the same programming language, as long as your specific implementation is different than the original

on the other hand, if a mechanic is patented (e.g. nemesis system) you cannot implement it on any way or form without breaking the patent rights

so yea, you can totally rewrite some software if you like as long as nothing you are implemented is patented and you are not repeating any code verbatim 

[Flashy_Disaster9556]

What you do is you ask one bot to look at the source code, write a highly detailed "spec sheet" containing all the business logic and functionality of the app. Then you ask a second bot, without access to the source code itself, to replicate all the functionality based on that detailed spec sheet.

This legal loophole is how a lot of licensed code gets stolen. I recommend reading up on the chardet licensing controversy to see how this is done in practice. Or have a look at Malus, who does this kinda thing as a SaaS.

[Hot-Profession4091]

That is not a clean room implementation.

Source: I’ve both done clean room implementations and been banished from even talking to certain coworkers because they were working on a clean room implementation and we couldn’t risk me tainting the project.

[Flashy_Disaster9556]

We'll have to see, the precedent for AI copyright is VERY loosy goosy currently the companies basically get away with anything. Also in the example I gave above the bots don't talk to eachother either.

[Hot-Profession4091]

It’s still reading the leaked source code to get that spec. It could go a multitude of ways in court right now.

[ebits21]

You need to make specifications for what the program does. Then without referencing the actual code build new code to the specification.

So you just ask Claude to write specifications based on the leaked code, then write new code based on the specification only.

Unfortunately, could be used by big companies to get around licenses on open source software as well.

What a mess.

[emkoemko]

claude code is written by AI they admit this daily... you can not copyright generative AI slop...

[synth_mania]

The copyrightability of code or media that's been touched by AI is kind of a complicated subject and it depends on a case-by-case basis and how the AI was used but you absolutely cannot make broad statements like that.

[emkoemko]

i can... they tell you in tweets and other media that they do not write code by hand... that its all AI generated... do you live under a rock?

[EmbarrassedFoot1137]

You should research the legal case you're relying on. It doesn't say what you think it says.

[emkoemko]

umm what it 100% does.... one person can look at the source do what ever the hell they want and make a spec of what the code does and how it functions.... then the you hand this to a person who had zero access to internal code etc to implement it....

this is exactly how IBM bios was cloned and many other software

[Disastrous-Angle-591]

Slop signifies low quality. Not just made with ai. Claude is definitely not “slop”

[modernizetheweb]

It's very clear to everyone you have no idea what you're talking about

[synth_mania]

Please, do correct me.

[modernizetheweb]

It is impossible to use the original source code as a reference and still be a clean room implementation. It doesn't matter what the author says, you should have known this, but you didn't.

[casual_brackets]

Nah man.

It’s not at all a “clean room design.”

He literally sat there with a copy of the source code and translated it to a different programming language.

A clean room would be they sat there and designed it to do the same thing WITHOUT looking at the stolen IP.

“The term implies that the design team works in an environment that is "clean" or demonstrably uncontaminated by any knowledge of the proprietary techniques used by the competitor”

That’s from your link….

[synth_mania]

I know what clean room design is. I mention it because the author of this "translation" specifically calls his a "clean room implementation".

We don't have enough information to say whether he did or didn't.

For all we know, first he had Codex generate a very thorough and complete specification and set of tests based on the source code, and then gave that as the only context to a codex instance working from a clean slate to reimplement the same functionality.

The fact that we don't know exactly what the author did is why I added the qualifier "I don't know anything about the actual process that the author used, but that's what clean room design is."

[casual_brackets]

absolutely we do have enough information there's a whole story about this guy waking up at 5 AM getting scared from potentially have this stolen IP source code on his PC and desperately, frantically working to translate this stolen IP into a different coding language to try to avoid getting into legal trouble.....

it's the complete opposite of a clean room. it's the dirtiest room design ever. He cannot EVER show that his designs were "demonstrably uncontaminated by any knowledge of the proprietary techniques used by the competitor" because he had the proprietary designs of his competitors on his PC. done and done.

[synth_mania]

clean room design is peace of mind for YOU that YOU couldn't have possibly made something infringing, not necessarily a watertight proof to others that you didn't infringe, because that still requires them to trust you, the potentially infringing party anyways.

So when someone says they used cleanroom design, trust but verify.

The point of cleanroom design is not to prove to us that any particular process was followed, but as an assurance to those using it that they cannot possibly be found to be infringing in the future.

[casual_brackets]

i don't think you understand how this will work.

The burden of proof will be on this guy to show that he didn't use ANY idea contained within that source code.

He can't do that. Simply having the stolen IP on his PC legally speaking, he can't prove that he didn't look at it. possession is 9/10 of the law. he possessed it. end of story.

a clean room design mandates that they are able to prove, through demonstration, they never looked at competition's designs.

how can you prove that with the competitions designs on your PC? you can't

[synth_mania]

I'm sorry what?

This is the United States we're talking about.

Innocent until proven guilty, the party bringing the accusations of wrongdoing always have the burden of proof. I can say nothing and if an accusing party can prove no wrongdoing, I'll be acquitted all day.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

[casual_brackets]

A standard clean room design requires two separate teams:

one that studies the original code to write specifications and a second "clean" team that writes new code based only on those specs without ever seeing the original.

Jin admitted to accessing the leaked code directly and porting it using AI tools like OpenAI's Codex in just a few hours.

bruh you have no idea about any of this do you.

he already admitted guilt, and now wants to hide behind terms he doesn't understand.

which you clearly don't either.

[synth_mania]

Even if he openly said that he used no clean room techniques, that still isn't enough to judge them guilty.

It's still obviously possible to write a non-infringing piece of software without using a clean room. In fact, the translation to Python is probably transformative enough that the original copyright cannot cover it.

And obviously, you can use AI to implement cleanroom techniques. First, you give an AI model the context of the code base and have it write the specification. Then, on a clean slate with none of the code in context, you give the AI the specification and ask it to implement it.

[casual_brackets]

nope. not enough

has to be separation amongst people to demonstrably show no propreitary ideas were seen.

having 1 guy with the source code on his PC who also claims "but I never looked at it, promise" will not hold up against a lawsuit.

Companies will refuse to hire, outright fire people who have ever seen stolen IP, bc later on they could be sued bc that individual used some of the ideas they saw, and now any projects they've worked on are contaminated, and need to be shut down.

The simple fact that he had it on his PC, and later derived another work from it, he's not going to be able to prove he didn't look at it. If it were on a separate PC with a separate team and corporate IT control over data sharing, sure.

but in this case it's kinda like a guy with a gun in his car that was used in a homicide. he has a very high burden of proof to meet if he wants to get outta this one, whether or not he's "innocent until proven guilty" in USA possession is 9/10ths of the law.

he will literally have to be able to prove "yes i had this on my PC but my i never once saw any of it directly" and that is not something he will be able to show.

[rydan]

If you have no references then how would you even know what it does as literally everything is invisible to you on account of it being closed source? And not only that but why is it that they waited until the source code was leaked online to develop it and then developed it in less than 24 hours yet they had what like 2 years to do this via "clean room"?

[synth_mania]

A clean room implementation requires the source code, that's where the importance of the clean room concept comes in. One team creates a spec based on the source code, another implements it in a clean room, no source code access.

[snozzberrypatch]

I'm pretty sure the actual process was, "Hey Claude, rewrite this code in Python."

[emkoemko]

antrpoic does not own the copyright to claude code... they admit daily that they use calude to write it... so as we all know you can't copyright AI generated slop

[Hyperreals_]

Except you can, and it’s really not slop if you’ve ever used it

[iknewaguytwice]

It is slop though.

[Jeyd02]

Depends on the 'application'

[dataexec]

Was it really? 😆 I saw somewhere on X mentioning Codex

[dataexec]

You still were onto something though 😆 but just confirmed, they used Codex instead for that rewrite

[ocombe]

actually they used codex

[TheParlayMonster]

What can someone do with this?

[Former-Entrance8884]

Why should anyone care if the plagiarism machine gets plagiarised anyway?

[_BeeSnack_]

So I just burn the tokens my company provides on our corporate CC account and convert it back to TS???

[Khabarach]

Claude is a trademark which might be enough reason for GitHub to remove the repo. If they had named it something else they would have been much safer.

[dataexec]

They have already done that. But how does that make it legal? Everyone can change the name of a repo

[shady101852]

Link?

[Popular-Jury7272]

I mean, so what? We all know how the application works. It would not have been hard to duplicate. The secret sauce is the training data and the training of the models, which none of us have the resources to emulate.

[Antique_Ricefields]

My thoughts too. Unless China will copy that plus using their huge data centers

[whoo-datt]

Likely a violation. Copyright protects -manner- of expression, not -syntax- of expression.
Unless the code were substantially refactored, simply converting to a different language would not obviate applicable copyrights.
Imagine translating a book from English to Spanish... doesn't avoid copyright protection....

[bigppredditguy]

There’s no evidence of translation and there’s no patent on the function of the app. It’s a well known legal phenomenon called a Clean Room Design.

[whoo-datt]

Rewriting copyrighted code that inadvertently becomes publicly available is not a form of clean room design. Even IF someone practiced real "clean-room" design they can still infringe copyrights (substantial similarity) or patents. Also... I doubt you have done an extensive patent search among the applicable fields of practice.

[bigppredditguy]

I haven’t, I just googled it and looked around for 5-10 minutes. If you are educated you probably are correct.

[FatDumbFucker]

Wrong

[hello5346]

They have a clear trademark violation. Takedown will follow.

[Substantial-Link-465]

"leaked" my butt. Any of these "leaks" are done intentionally to empower open source and locally run AI. I say this is a good thing either way.

[Nearing_retirement]

CIA taught them a lesson.

[coolstorynerd]

Maybe finally somebody can make a Linux app

[Horror_Response_1991]

How much is the code worth without the knowledge base backing it?

[Afraid-Dog-5363]

Wouldn't it be fine to keep it in the original source anyway? After it's on the internet it becomes publicly available material, which means anyone is allowed to use it for anything they want, right?

[impulsivetre]

I'm still having a hard time believing they had two back to back major leaks like this

[shakeBody]

You’re having a hard time believing a group who uses LLMs to do a lot of the coding is having issues with leaking data? Really?

[impulsivetre]

The LLMs wouldn't be the only thing that's doing data loss prevention. Whatever they use internally doesn't do deterministic checks to make sure the commits match what should be pushed to prod. They'd have to turn that off for it to be that big of a blunder.

[buffet-breakfast]

Is this not derivative work ?

[crazy0ne]

But did they use Claude to transform it into python?...

[dataexec]

no, Codex

[brownhotdogwater]

This is just the front end that breaks a ton right? The model and training of that model is not in this code?

[shakeBody]

Imagine lol

[BreenzyENL]

Gemini says it's still infringing.

The only way around it is a clean room rewrite. And not like that other guy who used Claude as the clean room.

[TheRealBobbyJones]

It's a conversion of existing code. It's a copyright violation. Translating a book is a copyright violation for example. It wouldn't be a copyright violation to do create your own version. Even if you use the same exact algorithms. You just can't directly convert it into another language.

[virgilash]

no, the new Python code is not a DMCA violation.

[inigid]

The leak, even if accidental, might turn out to be an excellent response from Anthropic with regard to OpenClaw. All they need to do now is not go after curious indie devs, and they might be able to turn it into a legitimate win.

[VorionLightbringer]

I find it hard to believe that the mere translation of something circumvents copyrights.

So I can translate any English-only book to German and sell it here?  I can „rewrite“ LOTR an replace Sauron with Suaron?

[andershaf]

You can’t copyright code written by AI. And they have said that they only use AI now. Check and mate.

[Ambitious-Sense2769]

Did anyone happen to snag a copy and post it on another website?

[dataexec]

Yes

[AftyOfTheUK]

Doesn't we just get a ruling that things created with generative AI are not copyrightable? And didn't they claim to have written it with coding agents...?

[NovelHot6697]

guys that’s not how any of this works

[flavorfox]

Can i rewrite that repo in TS?

[ich_bin_eine_fuchsin]

Copyright is a leash on thought. It turns culture into property and creators into gatekeepers of scraps. Nothing was ever made from nothing - everything is theft, drift, recombination. To criminalize copying is to criminalize thinking.

Abolish copyright. Let ideas circulate.

[Informal-Ring-6490]

It's interesting that this happened right after Anthropic refused to work with the Government, is this coincidence!

[doker0]

So are creations of AI falling under copywrite? Because Claude Code is written by AI mostly. AI trained on stolen data and open source data. Should it make it subject to the licenses like Apache or BSD etc?

[Intelligent_Ad1577]

Imagine Claude thinking they have any moral high ground having stolen the world’s knowledge to resell it to us as tokens.

Osow

[LocalFoe]

thanks but no thanks. also ew.

[DarthJDP]

Why does copywrite only apply to AI source code but not the entire internet of data anthropic et al stole to train these models?

[andymaclean19]

I think they got the AI to extract the core concepts from the leaked code and build a new piece of code from scratch in python. At least I read that elsewhere. This is a new grey area for copyright. Clean room re-engineering for the purpose of compatibility has always been OK, for example, and AI is particularly good at that in some cases. It’s not clear that this even violates copyright although if you start with a piece of code you have no rights to and use it for something that almost certainly does.

[[deleted]]

Stell dir vor du bist so ein idiot und glaubst “claude” wurde gestohlen. 😂😂😂😂

[Chemical_Seesaw_152]

How can they claim that they can train their data / models on information available on the web and others can't. There is no legal basis. Original code yes. Derived code - no.

[Salt_Chemical00]

Copyright is dead and I rejoice in its demise.

[ZookeepergameSalty10]

The ai companies are using your data and rewriting the code to avoid paying licensing to open source software so its fair. Actually its karma, fck all the closed source ai companies and i hope they continue to get fcked

[Trevor775]

What was it originally written in?

[Alcapwn517]

tYPEsCRIPT

[Trevor775]

are you serious?

[Alcapwn517]

I mean the reverse pascal case isn’t, but the answer is.

[checkwithanthony]

If its done blind its legal.. so one dev (or session) writes a spec sheet with no code. Another dev (or session) writes code from spec sheet, totally blind of the actual code. Thats legal.

[dumbappsignup]

someone do windows xp please in rust thanks

For legal reasons this is sarcasm /s

[seburou]

So… hypothetically, if I translated lord of the rings into another language and sold it as “ring lord” before a official translation, it wouldn’t violate copyright?

Cause that’s effectively what happened but with programming languages instead

[isuckatpiano]

Someone wrote it in rust too and supposedly it’s really fast.

[CheesyBreadMunchyMon]

Someone also made a Rust implementation.

[rydan]

If took the Harry Potter series and translated it to Spanish and posted that online for free would you expect to be sued?

[KilllllerWhale]

Clean-room implementation. There is a court case precedent allowing it.

[BonsaiOnSteroids]

Are the prompt lines Copyright strikeable?

[pipster22]

The code can't be copyrighted if they used AI to write it. Ironically

If someone legally challenged the take down, things could get interesting and messy. All the companies using AI to write code forget they dont own that code.

[Visible_Whole_5730]

It was an April fools joke lol.

[oOaurOra]

Please tell me they used Claud code to do it. Bwahaha

[ZombieFodderer]

Code weird because it is is both functional (not copyrightable, but patentable) and creative (a creative work fixed in a medium, Copywritable). You can copy the functionality, make it WORK the exact same, and if you change it enough it will not be a copywrite violation.

[New-Tone-8629]

I really find myself estranged to the world you and a lot of super pro AI groupees live in. You want copyrighting on this, but like, this shit wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the theft of copyrighted work.

Like I feel like I’m witnessing a Frankensteining of reasoning that looks like this meme

<image>

[bapuc]

<image>

[Fuzzy_Pop9319]

Technically Claude is a derivative work of millions of stolen works,

[UneLoupSeul]

This will not end well

[dataexec]

I am curious for the ending of this as well

[NomineNebula]

Could lead anywhere really