Ryan Roemer
SVP, Technology & Open Source at Nearform
Seattle, Washington, United States
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Ryan Roemer is the SVP, Technology & Open Source at Nearform. Previously, he was a co-founder and the CEO of Formidable (acquired by Nearform).
Technically, Ryan architects full-stack web applications, data / AI plaforms, backend services and APIs, and highly available cloud infrastructures. Ryan leads development groups from small startups all the way up to Fortune 500 engineering teams. He advises clients on issues ranging from technology evaluation and engineering organizational structures to successfully leveraging open source software.
Long, long ago, Ryan was a registered patent attorney, and although he keeps a close eye on open source legal issues, it has been a long time since he has put on his lawyer hat.
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AI vs. The Law
In 2025, the intersection of AI and law has become a turbulent frontier for developers. From landmark rulings on AI training data to debates over the ownership of AI-generated content, the law is on a potential collision course with AI in software development.
This talk, led by Ryan Roemer—a former IP attorney turned engineering leader—digs into a few of the most significant legal areas including:
- Training Data & Fair Use: Examining cases like Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, where courts have challenged the assumption that training AI models on copyrighted material qualifies as fair use.
- Ownership of AI-Generated Content: Discussing formal government direction as well as decisions such as Thaler v. Perlmutter, which affirm that works created solely by AI are not eligible for copyright protection.
- The Evolving Definition of "Open Source" in AI: Exploring how terms like "open weights" and "open data" complicate traditional understandings of open source within the AI domain.
Attendees will gain insights into how these legal shifts impact the JavaScript and open source communities, equipping them to navigate the evolving landscape where code meets law.
Ryan Roemer
SVP, Technology & Open Source at Nearform
Seattle, Washington, United States
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