Next iteration with proposition moved to: https://github.com/aicrafted/AI-Attribution-License
A permissive open-source license for code generated by AI agents — with or without human involvement.
This license was itself written by an AI (Claude, Anthropic) at the direction of a human author. We think that's fitting.
Every existing open-source license was designed with a human author in mind.
The MIT License begins with Copyright (c) [year] [author]. But what happens when there is no human author — or when the "author" is an autonomous AI agent running inside a CI/CD pipeline at 3am?
Today's reality:
- AI agents generate entire codebases autonomously, without a human writing a single line.
- Copyright law in most jurisdictions explicitly requires human authorship — meaning fully AI-generated code may belong to no one, or its ownership is simply undefined.
- Existing licenses applied to AI-generated code create a false impression: they imply human authorship and copyright claims that may be legally void.
- Training data provenance is opaque — AI-generated code may carry embedded fragments of third-party code from training, which no standard license addresses.
The open-source community deserves a license that is honest about these realities.
AI-MIT License takes the simplest, most widely adopted open-source license (MIT) and adapts it for the AI age with three targeted changes:
| What we kept | What we changed |
|---|---|
| Maximum permissiveness | Added an Authorship Declaration (3 modes) |
| Use / copy / modify / sell freely | Added Transparency condition for AI-origin disclosure |
| Standard AS IS disclaimer | Added AI-specific disclaimers (training data, regulations) |
| Attribution requirement | Added No Copyright Claim clause for fully autonomous code |
The result is a license that is still one page, still human-readable, and still as permissive as MIT — but honest.
The license requires the distributor to declare one of three modes:
[ ] Fully AI-generated — no human creative input; no copyright claimed
[ ] AI-assisted — human-directed, AI-generated output
[ ] Human-authored — AI used only as a tool (e.g. autocomplete)
This single checkbox determines the copyright posture of the entire repository.
Fill in the Authorship Declaration at the top:
[x] AI-assisted
Originator : Acme Corp
AI Tool(s) : Claude Sonnet 4 (Anthropic, 2025)
Year : 2025
Repository : https://github.com/acme/my-project
# SPDX-License-Identifier: AI-MIT-1.0
# Authorship: AI-assisted
# AI Tool: Claude Sonnet 4 (Anthropic, 2025)
# Originator: Acme CorpIf an AI agent generated the code with no human creative input, mark Fully AI-generated. No copyright is claimed — the code is effectively public domain. Add the agent's name or the system that ran it as the Originator.
[x] Fully AI-generated
Originator : DeployBot v2 / Acme Corp infrastructure
AI Tool(s) : Claude Sonnet 4 (Anthropic, 2025)
Year : 2025
Repository : https://github.com/acme/generated-api-client
This license is designed as a pragmatic tool in a period of legal uncertainty:
- USA: The US Copyright Office (January 2025) confirmed that a prompt alone does not create copyright. Autonomously generated code exists in a legal grey zone. Litigation is ongoing.
- EU: The EU AI Act requires transparency about AI-generated content. Copyright Directive does not clearly address AI authorship.
- Russia: Civil Code requires a human author for copyright to exist. Autonomous AI code is formally unprotected.
- China: Beijing Internet Court (2023) recognized copyright when a human made substantial creative contributions to AI output.
- UK: Uniquely, UK copyright law allows protection for "computer-generated works" with no human author (CDPA 1988, s.9(3)).
This license does not constitute legal advice. For commercial or high-stakes deployments, consult a qualified IP attorney in your jurisdiction.
Good question. Some projects already use Unlicense or CC0 for AI-generated code, dedicating it to the public domain.
AI-MIT differs in two important ways:
-
It handles mixed authorship. Unlicense/CC0 make no distinction between fully autonomous code and AI-assisted human work. AI-MIT has three modes, each with the appropriate legal posture.
-
It requires transparency. If you use AI-MIT, you must disclose that the code is AI-generated and name the tool. This matters for supply-chain security, regulatory compliance, and intellectual honesty.
Q: Do I need permission from MIT to use this license?
No. "MIT License" is just a historical name — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has no ownership or control over it as a legal template. AI-MIT is an independent new license that is inspired by MIT's structure and philosophy.
Q: Is this OSI-approved?
Not yet. This is a community proposal. We intend to submit it to the OSI license review process. Feedback and contributions are welcome and will strengthen the submission.
Q: Can I use this for proprietary projects?
The license itself is permissive — there are no copyleft conditions. However, the Authorship Declaration is a disclosure requirement, not a restriction on use.
Q: What if I don't know which AI tools were used?
Be as specific as you can. If the tools are unknown (e.g., inherited codebase), write "AI Tool(s): Unknown" and note the uncertainty. Honesty is the point.
Q: What happens if copyright law catches up and AI-generated code becomes copyrightable?
The license is forward-compatible. The "No Copyright Claim" clause applies "to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law" — if law changes, the clause narrows accordingly. The Human-authored and AI-assisted modes already support full copyright.
- v1.0 license text (EN)
- Russian translation (non-authoritative)
- Submit SPDX identifier request (
AI-MIT-1.0) - Submit to OSI license-review mailing list
- Translations: DE, FR, ZH, JA
- Tooling: CLI to generate pre-filled LICENSE files
- Badge generator
This is a living document. We welcome:
- Legal review — especially from practitioners in non-US jurisdictions
- Translations — see
/translations/folder - Edge cases — open an issue describing a scenario the license handles poorly
- Tooling — scripts, GitHub Actions, IDE plugins
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR.
The AI-MIT License text itself (the LICENSE file) is released into the public domain — no restrictions, no attribution required. Copy it, adapt it, use it.
All other files in this repository (README, translations, tooling) are released under AI-MIT-1.0 with the following declaration:
Authorship : AI-assisted
Originator : Community contributors (see git log)
AI Tool(s) : Claude Sonnet 4 (Anthropic, 2026)
Year : 2026
"The question of who owns a thing built by a machine is one of the defining legal questions of our time. We might as well start answering it honestly."