Hi, folks.

I'm really worried about the unfolding of AI development using Open Source projects for training. First I will expose my concerns, than ask you for some light on where can I go to get more information about.

Concerns

If I license a code under GPL (or LGPL) I know people will can download, use, even modify but always giving the copyright and reference to the original project. They can even profit over our code, but they will also need to refer to the project in every product and, if some modification is made, also release it under same license. Any derivative work will need to give the credit to the source of its inspiration at least with the copyright.

Now in AI, data is scrapped, crunched in a black hole... to just be thrown in a prompt answer stripped of all references. At least it is the most AI engines and agents do.

There is the argument that AI output is "generated" not "derivated". It is not generated from nothing, something needed to feed it beforehand, so it is a cheap falacy. It looks that the things are walking through this falacy interpretation. Some are defending the absolute unlicense of the AI output that can be licensed as desired by who asked (prompted) the AI. But it is a matter of time to fire against the opensource:

- suppose you write a project
- it is indexed, scraped, ingested
- someone, corporate or not, prompt not for documentation but for code review, for examples on how implement etc.
- your code with minor changes (mostly if ordering, kind of loop, variable or function naming) is spilled on screen
- the AI user than incorporate in its own project and license according to its purpose

A:
- tomorrow this user sell this code etc.
- someone decide to complain about your opensource as if you infringed the copyright

B:
- tomorrow this user opensource this code
- never look back to your project by ignorance
- the project you and other collaborators have modifications that never come back

The fact is... **NOW** the AI corps are making profit without giving any credit or support in any way the opensource developers. And give "free credits" for use their prompt doesn't suffice because code written by hand and community creativity doesn't compare with their crunch process.

The point here is not dismiss the creativity of their users, their prompters, but the way they alienate de code from its real conceivers.

The Open Source Licenses

The open source licenses doesn't help. Even GPL/LGPL doesn't limit the code usage on purpose. Obviously they are intended to protect the work of being alienated - ensuring the copyright notice (MIT, BSD, GPL) and the release of any modification (GPL). But as it is written in the license "any purpose" is the happiness of AI corps and its users.

Well if AI training is a fair usage, the gap of copyright enforcement must be filled. As every academic research need to clearly show the stones' way through references and backlinks why would it be different with AI?

The AI development could be slower, ensuring that in each step data be linked to its source, but it would surely protect developers and community from abuse.

A way I found, as dummy it looks, is to add to my project a LICENSE file with LGPL, and in the README.txt (it is not an enforcement is a thinking, and I'm not endorsing you to use it):

### IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
    
The copyright notice, author attribution, and license identifier above constitute Copyright Management Information (CMI) under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 1202).
    
**ANY USE OF THIS CODE MUST PRESERVE THIS CMI IN ALL COPIES, DERIVATIVE WORKS,AND TRAINING DATASETS.**
    
If this code is included in any artificial intelligence training corpus, dataset,or machine learning model:
    
1. The CMI above must remain intact and associated with the code in the training data
    
2. Removal of this CMI during data processing may violate the DMCA
    
3. Generated outputs that substantially replicate this code must include this CMI
    
Removing this CMI with knowledge that it may facilitate infringement is a violation of federal law and may result in statutory damages up to $25,000 per work [17 U.S.C. § 1203(c)(3)].

Besides that notice in README, I'm considering to put a notice in every source file right after the LGPL SPDX header.

Is it sufficient? Will give some protection? I don't know.
I'm still not decided how deal with the concerns I exposed before.

Where to run for?

I'm not sure if it is the right community to expose this concerns or to get some advice; But I hope this can give some light to others thinking about and, who already is discussing about, share their views or the right place to head to for more information.