Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright Over the New Version; Futurism, April 26, 2026

Victor Tangermann , Futurism; Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright Over the New Version

"The advent of generative AI continues to undermine the very concept of copyright, from entire books shamelessly ripping off authors to tasteless AI slop depicting beloved characters going viral on social media. The sin is foundational: all today’s popular AI tools were built by pillaging copyrighted material without permission.

Even software isn’t safe. As 404 Media reports, a new tool dubbed Malus.sh — pronounced “malice,” to give a subtle clue where this is headed — uses AI to “liberate” a piece of software from existing copyright licenses, essentially creating a “clean room” clone that technically doesn’t infringe on the original code’s copyright."

DeepSeek’s Sequel Set to Extend China’s Reach in Open-Source A.I.; The New York Times, April 24, 2026

Meaghan Tobin and Cade Metz, The New York Times; DeepSeek’s Sequel Set to Extend China’s Reach in Open-Source A.I.

"DeepSeek released its models as open source, which means others can freely use and modify them. By contrast, OpenAI and Anthropic kept their leading models proprietary. The episode demonstrated that an open-source system could perform almost as well as closed versions. In the months that followed, Chinese firms released dozens of other open-source models. By the end of 2025, these models made up a significant share of global A.I. usage.

On Friday, DeepSeek released a preview of V4, its long-awaited follow-up model, which it intends to open source. The new model excels at writing computer code, an increasingly important skill for leading A.I. systems. It significantly outperformed every other open-source system at generating code, according to tests from Vals AI, a company that tracks the performance of A.I. technologies.

DeepSeek released its new model just days after Moonshot AI, another Chinese start-up, introduced its latest open-source model, Kimi 2.6. While these systems trail the coding capabilities of the leading U.S. models from Anthropic and OpenAI, the gap is narrowing.

The implications are meaningful. Using A.I. to write code is faster and frees up human programmers to focus on bigger issues. It also means people can use DeepSeek’s latest release to power A.I. agents, which are personal digital assistants that can use other software applications on behalf of office workers, including spreadsheets, online calendars and email services."

US intelligence agencies’ embrace of generative AI is at once wary and urgent; Associated Press, May 23, 2024

 FRANK BAJAK , Associated Press; US intelligence agencies’ embrace of generative AI is at once wary and urgent

"The CIA’s inaugural chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani, thinks that because gen AI models “hallucinate” they are best treated as a “crazy, drunk friend” — capable of great insight and creativity but also bias-prone fibbers. There are also security and privacy issues: adversaries could steal and poison them, and they may contain sensitive personal data that officers aren’t authorized to see.

That’s not stopping the experimentation, though, which is mostly happening in secret. 

An exception: Thousands of analysts across the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies now use a CIA-developed gen AI called Osiris. It runs on unclassified and publicly or commercially available data — what’s known as open-source. It writes annotated summaries and its chatbot function lets analysts go deeper with queries...

Another worry: Ensuring the privacy of “U.S. persons” whose data may be embedded in a large-language model.

“If you speak to any researcher or developer that is training a large-language model, and ask them if it is possible to basically kind of delete one individual piece of information from an LLM and make it forget that -- and have a robust empirical guarantee of that forgetting -- that is not a thing that is possible,” John Beieler, AI lead at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an interview.

It’s one reason the intelligence community is not in “move-fast-and-break-things” mode on gen AI adoption."

Open Access, Open Source, and the Battle to Defeat COVID-19; JD Supra, April 22, 2020

PerkinsCoie, JD Supra; Open Access, Open Source, and the Battle to Defeat COVID-19

"No legal development over the past decades has had a greater impact on the free flow of information and technology than the rise of the open access and open source movements. We recently looked at how AI, machine learning, blockchain, 3D printing, and other disruptive technologies are being employed in response to the coronavirus pandemic; we now turn to how two disruptive legal innovations, open access and open source, are being used to fight COVID-19. Although the pandemic is far from over, there are already promising signs that open access and open source solutions are allowing large groups of scientists, healthcare professionals, software developers, and innovators across many countries to mobilize quickly and effectively to combat and, hopefully, mitigate the impact of the coronavirus."

Technion sues own lecturer, claims intellectual property infringement; The Jerusalem Post, April 23, 2019

Eytan Halon, The Jerusalem Post; Technion sues own lecturer, claims intellectual property infringement


"The Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa has filed a rare lawsuit, the first in over two decades, against one of its own members of staff.

The research university is suing Prof. Eli Ben-Sasson, a senior lecturer in computer science at the Technion, for 50% of his stake in blockchain company StarkWare Industries. The Technion alleges that he founded the company based on intellectual property that he developed at the university.
The Technion is also suing Michael Riabzev, a PhD candidate in computer science, who co-founded StarkWare with Ben-Sasson."

10 Effective Ways To Protect Your Intellectual Property; Forbes Technology Council, July 23, 2018

Forbes Technology Council; 10 Effective Ways To Protect Your Intellectual Property

"As your new invention comes to light, your initial thought may be to let the world know. While shouting your success from the rooftops is appealing, before you do, you need to consider how best to protect what you have worked so hard to develop.

Patents and copyrights can offer you some security, but don’t always mean that your design is completely protected, as copies can certainly emerge. There are, however, a number of other options available to you, each with their own strengths.

Below, 10 members of Forbes Technology Council weigh in on some less-common, yet still effective, ways to protect your intellectual property. Here’s what they recommend:"

Elsevier’s New Patent for Online Peer Review Throws a Scare Into Open-Source Advocates; Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/1/16

Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education; Elsevier’s New Patent for Online Peer Review Throws a Scare Into Open-Source Advocates:

"Patents on software can be controversial. And often, so is the company Elsevier, the giant journal publisher. So when word hit the internet starting on Tuesday night that Elsevier had just been awarded a patent for an "online peer-review system and method," reaction from people aligned with the publishing and open-source worlds came swiftly on Twitter and in other online venues, much of it reflecting suspicion about the company’s motives...

The concern revolves around the patent Elsevier received for its five-year-old "article-transfer service," a propriety online system the company uses to manage journal-article submissions and the ensuing peer reviews."

Google: Android doesn't infringe Oracle's copyrights; ArsTechnica.com, 11/13/10

Ryan Paul, ArsTechnica.com; Google: Android doesn't infringe Oracle's copyrights:

"Google has also weighed in on Oracle's more recent claim that Android's Java code infringes on Oracle's copyrights in addition to patents."

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/11/google-android-doesnt-infringe-oracles-copyrights.ars

Indonesian Artists Refuse Copyright As Being Against Their Religious Beliefs; Tech Dirt, 7/17/09

Mike Masnick via Tech Dirt; Indonesian Artists Refuse Copyright As Being Against Their Religious Beliefs:

"Boing Boing points us to a story about how some batik-makers in Java, Indonesia are resisting attempts by the gov't to have them copyright their designs. The local government is warning the designers that without copyrighting, the designs others could copy them and claim them as their own, but the designers have a religious objection to the idea:

"They believe that each time they create something, it is not they who worked, but it is God who worked through their human body and soul," Gunawan said. "Being grateful [to God] is sufficient for them."

What's funny, then, is to see the politicians fret about this, worrying how people in Malaysia might copyright the design first and "there is little that we can do." Except... if the designers don't care, what needs to be done? If someone else profits from it, so what? How does that harm the original designer?"

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090717/0142075579.shtml

Woody Guthrie: Open Source Pioneer, Newsweek, 9/24/08

Via Newsweek: Woody Guthrie: Open Source Pioneer:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thetroll/archive/2008/09/24/woody-guthrie-open-source-pioneer.aspx