If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US.
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It'll be interesting to see what happens when a company pisses off an employee to the point where that person creates a public repo containing all the company's AI-generated code. I guarantee what's AI-generated and what's human-written isn't called out anywhere in the code, meaning the entire codebase becomes public domain.
While the company may have recourse based on the employment agreement (which varies in enforceability by state), I doubt there'd be any on the basis of copyright.
@jamie thy open sourcing of windows 11
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@jamie@zomglol.wtf Fantastic read – thanks for sharing!
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
Additionally, AI generated code can be a copyright infringement if the AI basically generated a copy of some copyrighted code. And if we consider that AI is trained on lots of GPLed code there is a high probability it will generate code that would need to be licensed accordingly.
There is no clean room implementation of anything with AI. The code is immediately tainted.
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@jamie@zomglol.wtf brb forking Windows
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@jamie So, AI agents will need to hire humans to clean-room reimplement vibecoded projects?
What a time to be alive! #ReverseCentaur -
@tuban_muzuru You conduct yourself like a real asshole.
Tell me it ain't so, all this hoop-de-doo about how AI gonna take yer jerbs.
Worry not and take ol' TM's evergreen advice: the machines will always handle the rules and the humans will handle the exceptions.
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@jamie Maybe this would also be a problem for somebody that is publishing code with an Open Source license. If you don't have copyright on your vibe code, you can't license it, right?
Feels like it could lead to conflicts like the Google vs Oracle Java debacle. Nobody wants that. -
@katrinatransfem @fsinn @jamie If the material is acquired legally, they don't need a specific "license" to use it as training material. Copyright holders don't get to determine how their work is used after it's acquired, except to prevent its distribution.
Now, for the even larger than normal scumbags like Anthropic and Meta that torrented millions of books, that's certainly a problem. But Google, for instance, actually bought all the books they scanned.
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@jamie The funny thing about this whole thread is apparently I'd already blocked that guy some time ago, so I'm only seeing your side of the conversation. And…that's all I need to know anyway.
@jaredwhite @jamie Thanks for the tip for another hateful person to block.
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@stroughtonsmith Is this relevant? I honestly don’t know a ton about this but I’m curious if you have thoughts on it…
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@stroughtonsmith Is this relevant? I honestly don’t know a ton about this but I’m curious if you have thoughts on it…
@Verxion I think this is probably right:
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@Verxion I think this is probably right:
@stroughtonsmith I think that’s fair. I seriously do and so I’m not disagreeing with you.
…the sad thing though (to me anyway) is that this means an indie dev is unlikely to be able to afford to retain ownership like a large corporation can.
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@jamie I am afraid you are confusing registering copyright with the existence of copyright. They are not quite the same, and the differences are important.
Current law is that any human-created work is automatically copyrighted the moment it is created.
The link and screenshots you posted aren't about whether the human-written code mixed in with AI-written code is copyrighted—it is—they're about whether the copyright can be _registered_.
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@jamie I am afraid you are confusing registering copyright with the existence of copyright. They are not quite the same, and the differences are important.
Current law is that any human-created work is automatically copyrighted the moment it is created.
The link and screenshots you posted aren't about whether the human-written code mixed in with AI-written code is copyrighted—it is—they're about whether the copyright can be _registered_.
(1/2)@jamie A copyrighted work that isn't registered is still copyrighted. It's not "in the public domain."
Registration, in the U.S., allows for certain copyright enforcement actions that can't be taken for unregistered works. But whether or not a work is registered has no bearing on whether it is copyrighted vs. in the public domain.
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@jamie Just waiting for someone finding derivates of their own GPL code in propritary AI generated code...
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@jamie I *am* an IP lawyer and I (along with many others) have been saying it for a while, that if the position the “AI” co’s are taking with respect to the legality of scraping “publicly available” materials were true (that all “publicly available” materials are “public domain” free to be used as raw materials without consent required), then copyright ceases to exist and all their own materials will be free for everyone else to use the very first time they’re leaked. That’ll be fun for the co.
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If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
@jamie so proprietary projects that are made with llms can be leaked legally since there's no copyright for it ?
