Yes and No. If the full text of the license is "You must contact us for written approval before doing anything with this product" then yes that can be enforced.
But a document like this which basically has a bunch of words followed by a "Just kidding" line, are not enforceable, because it contradicts the previous language. A judge would throw the whole thing out because it doesn't meet the standard of a contract.
Which matters because training an LLM very likely is not protected by copyright.
While for a copyrighted work the default is that you can’t use it unless you have a valid license, for an LLM the default is that you can use it unless you have signed a contract restricting what you can do in return for some consideration.
I don’t think these contracts are designed to be enforced because an attempt to enforce it would reveal it to be hot air, they are just there to scare people into compliance.
Better to download LLMs from unofficial sources to avoid attempted contract shenanigans.
A large company I work for declined to buy licenses from a supplier that had this clause. From my understanding it's not really legal - or at worst it's a gray area - but the language is just too risky if you're not looking to be the test case in court.
Exactly. It’s not about whether it’s enforceable, it’s about the fact that a sketchy license indicates that they might not always operate in good faith.
It unfortunately isn't worded that it only affects new usage. If you needed to check once before your initial use that would be shady but unquestionably legal as the terms of the contract are clear when you are entering into the agreement.
This clause allows them to arbitrarily change the contract with you at will, with no notice. That _shouldn't_ be enforceable but AFAIK that kind of contract has never been tested. It is _likely_ unenforceable though.
Why shouldn't that be enforceable? "Permission to use this software may be withdrawn at any time" seems like it would be an enforceable clause; why would this be less so?
I suppose a better question would be "how drastic can the change be to the license?" because by adding that term, you're basically superseding every other term on the license. How do licenses deal with contradictory terms if that's even possible?
The license is explicit that it can be updated unilaterally. Nobody can adopt this software and claim not to know that's a possibility. There are attorneys specializing in open source licenses who comment on HN regularly, and maybe they'll surprise us, but, as a non-lawyer nerding out on this stuff I put all my chips down on "this is legally fine".
The two reasons I think it's not that black and white is:
1. This brings up the question of being able to agree to a contract before the contract is written which makes no sense.
2. If it's legal then why don't all companies do it. Instead, companies like Google regularly put out updated terms of service which you have to agree to before continuing to use their service. Often times you don't realize it because it's just another checkbox or button to click before signing in.
Imagine if a landlord sued a tenant after 1 year for a new roof of an apartment because the contract stated that "tenant will be responsible for all repairs" but the tenant pointed out that the contract also said "the house is in perfect and new condition".
Both things cannot be true, so the judge throws it out.
Same thing here, you can't grant someone a license to use something and then immediately say, "You can't use this without checking with us first" it is contradictory.
