[License-review] For Approval: OpenMDW License Agreement, versions 1.1 (OpenMDW-1.1)

[Stefano Maffulli]

On 8/31/26 10:27, Moming Duan wrote:
>
> With a model, the party giving up claims is the user, and the user 
> cannot know. Here is the technical background. In a traditional 
> software copyright dispute, the holder can read the source code, run a 
> code review, and point at the copied lines. A model offers nothing to 
> read: the weights are huge tables of numbers. And in my RAG example, 
> my text has been converted into vectors, so the database holds neither 
> my sentences nor anything a reviewer could match against my work. 
> Without using the model, I have no way to know whether my work ended 
> up in there at all.
>
Some people believe that the data used to train the model is "archived" 
in compressed form in the weights, therefore the weights aren't just 
numbers but a full copyright-based derivative of the training data. 
This, I think, is the crux of the matter: this license makes it harder 
for those believers to bring lawsuits against AI developers, as they're 
happening now, because of the termination clause.

> My earlier example makes this concrete: I use a model through an API 
> and find that my inputs are being stored in the provider's database 
> for RAG. Under the license definition, that database would likely 
> count as associated data, part of the *Model Materials*. So when I 
> claim the copyright of my own work stored there, I am claiming that 
> the Model Materials infringe my copyright, and my license terminates. 
> I could not have known this before accepting the license, and I only 
> find out while using the model.
>
You want to keep the right to use a model that you claim has illegally 
used your copyrighted material and distributes it?
>
> The warranty disclaimer does not cover this. A disclaimer leaves me to 
> bear risks from third parties, and I keep my claims against anyone. 
> Paragraph 5 ends my license exactly when I bring a claim against the 
> licensor itself. A risk I must bear is not the same as a claim I am 
> punished for making.
>
> So from where I stand, this clause does not work like the patent 
> clauses it borrows from. It deters an ordinary copyright holder who 
> had no way to check first, on a work he cannot inspect.
>
I don't follow the logic: You can download and use the model under 
OpenMDW, test it. At that point, you realize that it's infringing on 
your copyright. You sue the developer of the model and, as a consequence 
of initiating the lawsuit, you lose the license to keep using the model. 
Just like you lose the license to use Firefox if you sue Mozilla for 
patent or copyright violation.