This gist contains a universal AI Use Restriction Addendum that can be attached to many open source licenses in order to restrict use of the licensed work for training AI systems, or as a component in a larger derivative work that uses or integrates with AI systems, either locally (e.g. via libraries, SDKs, etc.) or via remote APIs.
It was created with the assistance of a senior IP lawyer licensed in the United States, and builds upon existing work, notably EU AI Act Article 3(1).
To use the addendum, append the text contained in AI-Use-Restriction-Addendum-1.0.txt to the existing open source license text in your LICENSE and/or COPYING file(s).
If you're using an SPDX identifier to communicate how your work is licensed (perhaps in a build tool or package manager metadata file), you should also append the expression fragment WITH AdditionRef-AI-Use-Restriction-Addendum-1.0 to that existing SPDX identifier, thereby creating a composite SPDX license expression. For example, a project that was previously licensed under MIT would become MIT WITH AdditionRef-AI-Use-Restriction-Addendum-1.0.
You might consider using this addendum in conjunction with the Hippocratic license, if you have additional ethical concerns around the use of your works. It's also possible that they will add a No AI "module" of their own at some point, that achieves a similar result.
The addendum itself is copyright (c) Peter Monks 2026, and distributed under the CC0-1.0 license.
Q. Can I use this addendum by itself?
A. No. It (deliberately) doesn't describe several critical aspects of licensing your work to others, and relies on a "parent" license (e.g. any of the well known open source licenses) for those aspects.
Q. Is it compatible with all open source licenses?
A. It was designed to be universal (i.e. to augment any "parent" license, open source or not), but you should check with your own lawyer to confirm whether your choice of "parent" license creates legal inconsistencies. For example some open source licenses (notably the GPL) attempt to prevent additional restrictions from being imposed on a licensed work beyond those that the parent license imposes.
Q. Does this addendum restrict usage of my work in combination with AI-generated code?
A. No. Combining your work with AI-generated code in a derivative work is allowed, provided that that derivative work doesn't use your work for AI training or integrate with any kind of AI system or service.
Q. Is the resulting license + addendum "open source"?
A. In practice it will be as open source as the parent license you're already using, for downstream users not engaged in training or constructing AI systems or services. But according to the OSI's Open Source Definition, adding this addendum to an open source license violates criteria 6 (by discriminating against AI systems and services) and causes the resulting work to not be "open source".
Whether the OSI's definition of "open source" is relevant or not is entirely up to you to decide, in the context of your own work and objectives. This addendum is intended to be more philosophically aligned with the blossoming Ethical Source movement rather than the legacy Open Source movement.
Q. Aren't AI companies attempting to use the fair use doctrine to do an end run around copyright and licensing laws?
A. Yes they are, with mixed success in the courts to date.
Q. Doesn't fair use make this addendum meaningless?
A. Not necessarily. It is by no means settled law that AI companies have a valid claim under the fair use doctrine, and explicitly stating (via license terms such as these) that you don't want your IP used in these systems is better than not doing so.