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The advent of generative AI continues to undermine the very concept of copyright, from entire books shamelessly ripping off authors<\/a> to tasteless AI slop depicting beloved characters<\/a> going viral on social media. The sin is foundational: all today\u2019s popular AI tools were built by pillaging copyrighted material<\/a> without permission.<\/p>\n Even software isn\u2019t safe. As 404 Media reports<\/a>, a new tool dubbed Malus.sh<\/a> \u2014 pronounced \u201cmalice,\u201d to give a subtle clue where this is headed \u2014 uses AI to \u201cliberate\u201d a piece of software from existing copyright licenses, essentially creating a \u201cclean room\u201d clone that technically doesn\u2019t infringe on the original code\u2019s copyright.<\/p>\n The project is a tongue-in-cheek jab at tensions in the open source community. But it\u2019s also a real product being developed by an LLC with real paying customers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt works,\u201d cofounder and United Nations political economy of open source software researcher Mike Nolan told 404. He argued that if it were \u201cjust satire,\u201d it would largely be \u201cdismissed by open source tech workers who felt that they were too special and too unique and too intelligent to ever be the ones on the bad side of the layoffs or the economics of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n The process relies on a \u201cclean room\u201d design process that dates back to IBM\u2019s competitors reverse engineering its computers by using two teams: one that figured out specifications to recreate its BIOS, and another \u201cclean\u201d team that had never seen the company\u2019s code, as dramatized in the HBO show \u201cHalt and Catch Fire.\u201d<\/p>\n Thanks to AI, the process has become much more straightforward, allowing code-generating tools to replicate the functions of a piece of software without being exposed to its underlying code, thereby technically bypassing copyright licenses.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally, liberation from open source license obligations,\u201d Malus.sh\u2019s website boasts. \u201cOur proprietary AI robots independently recreate any open source project from scratch. The result? Legally distinct code with corporate-friendly licensing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo attribution,\u201d the website reads. \u201cNo copyleft. No problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Malus may be satire, but it\u2019s meant to shed light on a real phenomenon that\u2019s already taking place. Lat month, for instance, a new version of a popular open source python code library called \u201cchardet,\u201d raised the alarm bells among developers. As Ars Technica reported<\/a> at the time, the new \u201cground-up, MIT-licensed rewrite\u201d of the library, built with Anthropic\u2019s Claude Code, triggered a heated debate over \u201cclean room\u201d copies, which don\u2019t acknowledge or credit the original authors at all.<\/p>\n \u201cI have seen Malus.sh, and like many people, I wasn\u2019t sure it was satire at first, because I\u2019m sure someone will probably make that for real eventually,\u201d developer Dan Blanchard, who vibe-coded the library rewrite with Claude Code, told 404 Media.<\/p>\n Malus also highlights ongoing concerns from service-as-a-service companies<\/a>, who fear AI could render their often expensive offerings redundant thanks to competitors building their own customized versions. The fears have triggered massive sell-offs, with the stock of software companies like Oracle taking a beating<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n To Blanchard, who eventually slapped an open-source community-approved \u201czero-clause BSD\u201d license on his new version of chardet, it\u2019s too late to go back to a time when copyright licenses protected software companies.<\/p>\n \u201cA rewrite that would\u2019ve taken a team of people months or years can be done in days with AI,\u201d he told 404 Media. \u201cAs a professional software engineer, I don\u2019t love that much of the business model around selling software is in danger, but I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any putting the genie back in the bottle at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n