Ok sure, in the alternative, here's the argument:

The AI was trained with the code, so the complete rewrite is tainted and not a clean room. I can't believe this would need spelling out.

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pocksuppet an hour ago | parent | next [-]

"Tainted rewrite" isn't a legal concept either. You have to prove (on balance of probabilities - more likely than not) that the defendant made an unauthorized copy, made an unauthorized derivative work, etc. Clean-room rewriting is a defense strategy, because if the programmer never saw the original work, they couldn't possibly have made a derivative. But even without that, you still have to prove they did. It's not an offence to just not be able to prove you didn't break the law.

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Manuel_D an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As other pointed out, the notion of "clean room" rewrites is to make a particularly strong case of non-infringement. It doesn't mean that anything other than a clean room implementation is an infringement.

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jdauriemma 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is interesting and I'm not sure what to make of it. Devil's advocate: the person operating the AI also was "trained with the code," is that materially different from them writing it by hand vs. assisted by an LLM? Honestly asking, I hadn't considered this angle before.

	▲	cardanome an hour ago \| parent [-]
		If you worked at Microsoft and had access to the Windows source code you probably should not be contributing to WINE or similar projects as there would be legal risk. So for this case, not much different legally. Of course there is the practical difference just like there is between me seeing you with my own eyes and me taking a picture of you. "Training" an LLM ist not the same as training a human being. It a metaphor. Its confusing the save icon with an actual floppy disk. I can say I "trained" my printer to print copyrighted material by feeding it bits but that that would be pure sophism. Problem is that law hasn't really caught up the our brave new AI future yet so lots of decisions are up in the air. Plus governments incentivized to look the other way regarding copyright abuses when it comes to AI as they think that having competitive AI is of strategic importance.

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senko 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Reread the parent: clean room is not required.