AI Clean‑Room Bypasses Copyleft

Tools can prompt or fine‑tune models to recreate the functionality of open‑source projects without copying source text, producing legally argued 'original' code that sheds attribution and copyleft duties. That reproduces the old industry 'clean‑room' playbook but at machine speed and scale, enabling companies to adopt community code under proprietary licenses. — If adopted widely, this tactic could hollow out copyleft enforcement, shift incentives for contributors, and force new legal and policy responses about AI training provenance and license enforceability.