If k3 is open-weight (and it's available on hugging face [1]), how could they force providers to sing an extra (secret) licensing agreement?
Edit to answer my own question:
License file [2] states:
> If the Licensee or any of its affiliates operates a Model as a Service business, and the aggregate revenue of the Licensee and its affiliates exceeds 20 million US dollars (or the equivalent in other currencies) in total over any consecutive 12 months, the Licensee must enter into a separate agreement with Moonshot AI before using the Software or its derivative works for any commercial purpose.
[1] https://huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-K3
[2] https://huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-K3/blob/main/LICENSE
Can weights be copyrightable?
Licenses are not copyright law, they are contract law. Copyright is automatic and does not require any terms, as long as the work is covered by copyright. Contract law can then override the innate copyright rights (for example to permit people to use your copyrighted works).
If you create something that isn't copyright-able, you can still create a contract which people must agree to in order to use your work. The enforcement/validity of that contract then depends on making sure the user knew about the contract and agreed to it. The way they did that here (just publishing a LICENSE file) could be interpreted as a judge as no confirmation of agreement of contract - depending on if they find a "reasonable" user would have known to look for the file.
Copyright is an automatic protection (meaning you don’t need to register it, like registered trademarks), for certain types of creative works. Contracts are one way to dish out these rights (eg. for a fee).
If you have a work that is not copyrightable, and you give it to people lawfully, then you cannot protect it via copyright.
How would that ever be enforced, I wonder.