In the Legaltech News article “Open Source Licensing Considerations for Artificial Intelligence Application,” lawyers Vlad Teplitskiy, Damien Howard, and Fatima Kouadio offer guidance to companies considering adopting open source artificial intelligence models.
The authors provide context for the rise of open source AI tools, citing the popularity of DeepSeek’s R1 model, released in January of this year. However, they warn, “the cost-free nature of open source AI software does not necessarily equate to automatically being risk-free.”
Following an overview of open source software, the authors examine the risk levels of different types of licenses for AI model code, training datasets, and trained AI models. They encourage companies to pay close attention to commercial restrictions on certain licenses and acknowledge the evolving legal landscape of AI model training for noncommercial uses.
“Care must be taken to analyze, with the help of a qualified lawyer, all licenses under which AI model software is licensed to consider and mitigate potential risks,” conclude the authors, adding that it is best to assess these risks “as early as possible during the development of the proprietary applications.”
Read the full article here.
