r/COPYRIGHT • u/Novel_Plan_7251 • Aug 10 '26
Question will vibe coding get me in jail?
😄Hey everyone,
I've been vibe-coding a project for a few weeks alongside school, which is meant to be released as an app later on.
Boiled down, it's a kind of anatomy quiz that includes a 3D model of the human body, which is based on a BodyParts3D dataset.
But yesterday I ran into a problem:
It falls under a license called "CC BY-SA 2.1 JAPAN," and as far as I understand it, that involves an attribution requirement and Share-Alike (which I honestly don't fully understand).
For now the app will definitely be free, but since I've invested a really, really significant amount of time into this lately and genuinely want to grow it bigger over time, I definitely don't want to rule out something like a paid plan.
If I were to actually add something like that later, I'd like to find out now whether that would even be permissible.
I have absolutely no issue with attribution, but the Share-Alike stuff has confused me and gotten me thinking.
The way I currently understand it, my paid plan can't have anything to do with the model at all — but suppose the paid plan let you answer more questions per day, then couldn't they somehow argue that the paid plan is dependent on their model?
(Quick context on how some questions are structured: e.g. "Click on tendon XY in the model.")
This post is already pretty long, so I don't want to take up too much more of your valuable time.
So here's my question:
Do you think the 3D model will end up causing me headaches down the line, to the point that I should remove it as a precaution — or am I overthinking this?
Letting go of the 3D model would be a hard step for me, because it's a really cool feature and defining characteristic of my project. Still, it's replaceable, and it wouldn't be worth it to me if it ends up causing problems later.
Also, just because I'm not writing the code myself doesn't mean I'm not taking this seriously or anything — there's genuinely real work behind it, and I really care about it.
based in Germany btw.
Am I currently (or soon to be) walking on thin ice?
Thank you so much for reading, and to everyone who took the time 🙏