This analysis describes what DeepSeek's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This clause restricts the scope of permitted uses by establishing an exclusivity requirement around model improvement and development. The provision channels all model improvement work derived from DeepSeek's output back to DeepSeek models rather than permitting users to apply learnings to competing or alternative AI systems.
Interpretive note: The scope of 'output' is not precisely defined in the available text, creating ambiguity about whether this covers all forms of model-generated content or only specific output types.
Users who accept these terms agree to refrain from using the Model or its outputs as training material or improvement input for non-DeepSeek AI models. This obligation applies regardless of whether the competing model is commercially deployed, internally developed, or research-focused.
How other platforms handle this
You may not automatedly crawl or query the Services for any purpose or by any means (including, without limitation, screen and database scraping, spiders, robots, crawlers and any other automated activity with the purpose of obtaining information from the Services) unless you have received prior exp...
relate to transactions involving (f) the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime... (i) involve offering or receiving payments for the purpose of bribery or corruption.
You must not, and must not allow others to: Facilitate illegal or harmful activity through the End User Services; Cause harm to us or others through the End User Services;
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"You shall not use the Model or any output therefrom to develop, train, fine-tune, or otherwise improve any other large language models or AI models other than the DeepSeek models.— Excerpt from DeepSeek's DeepSeek Open Source License
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This clause restricts the scope of permitted uses by establishing an exclusivity requirement around model improvement and development. The provision channels all model improvement work derived from DeepSeek's output back to DeepSeek models rather than permitting users to apply learnings to competing or alternative AI systems.
Users who accept these terms agree to refrain from using the Model or its outputs as training material or improvement input for non-DeepSeek AI models. This obligation applies regardless of whether the competing model is commercially deployed, internally developed, or research-focused.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 1 platforms. See the full comparison.
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