{"id":235822,"date":"2026-04-26T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/26\/devious-new-ai-tool-clones-software-so-that-the-original-creator-doesnt-hold-a-copyright-over-the-new-version\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:25:09","slug":"devious-new-ai-tool-clones-software-so-that-the-original-creator-doesnt-hold-a-copyright-over-the-new-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/26\/devious-new-ai-tool-clones-software-so-that-the-original-creator-doesnt-hold-a-copyright-over-the-new-version\/","title":{"rendered":"Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright Over the New Version"},"content":{"rendered":"

Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright Over the New Version<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence\/malus-clones-software-copyright<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-26 08:15:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: futurism.com<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

Sign up to see the future, today<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n

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\u2019s popular AI tools were built by pillaging copyrighted material without permission.<\/p>\n

Even software isn\u2019t safe. As 404 Media reports, a new tool dubbed Malus.sh \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,…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":235823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/futurism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/malus-clones-software-copyright.jpg?quality=85&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-235822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-generative-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235824,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235822\/revisions\/235824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}