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Probably because AI generated code cannot be copyrighted. And the second reason it's not as good as AI sellers tell you.

mcny 1y ago
> Probably because AI generated code cannot be copyrighted. And the second reason it's not as good as AI sellers tell you. Is this true? I anal but I have a publicly available GitHub repo which shall go unnamed where most of the heavy lifting is by Claude and Gemini. If I can't copyright this code, does that mean I can't license it under AGPL? If someone copied some code from my repo, does that somehow now taint their code as well? My application is a simple console app. The original code mostly worked. I have been updating it for the past month or so when I run this application and discover some defect. I have tried hard to avoid the temptation to write much of the code myself with this application and only made minor edits myself, opting to try coaxing an LLM to do the right thing. This is not for work or even remotely work adjacent but I have been pleasantly surprised by the code quality. It still doesn't replace a programmer but it is impressive for what is essentially a glorified autocorrect auto complete iterated a little.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  > Is this true? I anal but I have a publicly available GitHub repo which shall go unnamed where most of the heavy lifting is by Claude and Gemini. If I can't copyright this code, does that mean I can't license it under AGPL? If someone copied some code from my repo, does that somehow now taint their code as well? No one knows, it's untested in court. As far as I understand, you can own and license the code you modify or create yourself, but if someone decides to copy and paste code they can prove came from an LLM that they found in your project, you don't have much of a standing to enforce your license on them.
- drob518 1y ago
  You own your prompts. /s
- protocolture 1y ago
  >Is this true? Depends. Probably not. Code produced solely by AI with no inputs or modification is not copyrightable. But theres an amount of human labor and direction you can mix in to pass that hurdle. Likely: 1. If you never tell anyone its AI created it doesnt matter 2. Someone will test this in court one day and we will discover where the line is actually drawn Until then you should follow the Terms and Conditions of the tool you use, it probably assigns you all applicable rights to the generated code. Not a lawyer etc.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > If you never tell anyone its AI created it doesn't matter If you try to register the copyright (which you legally must to sue over copyright infringement), you must state whether it was AI generated and, if it was AI generated, provide the information that supports it being copyrightable for the Copyright Office to evaluate. Falsifying this information is a crime. If it ever goes to court and the code did not provably exist before AI coding became common, you will be probably be questioned about it, and failing to respond truthfully is, again, a crime. So, when talking about the ability to claim and enforce legal rights, "if you never tell anyone about it", means, "if you are willing to actively and criminally lie". > Until then you should follow the Terms and Conditions of the tool you use, it probably assigns you all applicable rights to the generated code. It probably explicitly doesn't claim such rights (because the tool owner has no basis for claiming them, especially since they may not even exist), but it can't "assign" you anything the party offering the T&C's doesn't have in the first place, and even if it tried to that assignment would have no effect.
    - protocolture 1y ago
      >If you try to register the copyright Which legal jurisdiction? Because I don't have to register shit? >You don’t need to register for copyright in Australia. The moment an idea or creative concept is documented on paper or electronically it is automatically protected by copyright in Australia. Copyright protection is free and automatic under the Copyright Act 1968. >It probably explicitly doesn't claim such rights Most I have read assign everything to the user, Midjourney being an outlier because it reserves the right to distribute and remix your work without a bigger license fee. They do this for practical reasons, they don't want to be seen to own anything that might be associated with criminal activity. Sudowrite has their terms reproduced human readable. > We understand it's super important for you to retain ownership over the content you create, so whether you use Sudowrite to brainstorm, enhance your ideas, or fine-tune your writing, all the writing you generate remains yours. When you input text into Sudowrite and use its features to generate or improve content, the output is based on your initial input and creative direction. This means that the resulting content, enriched or transformed by Sudowrite, is considered your intellectual property. You have initiated the creative process, and therefore, the contributions made by Sudowrite in response to your inputs are yours to own, use, and distribute as you see fit.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Is this true? It is true that products of purely a prompt passed through an AI and returned cannot be copyrighted in the US currently, whether a particular body of code that involves AI generation but has a more involved workflow can be copyrighted is a case by case question (for copyright registration you need to document the actual human and AI process and present it to the copyright office and they will make a decision; if you didn't do this at the time, you've probably accidentally rendered it unprotectable even if would have been were the facts documented. Technically, copyright exists at creation without registration, but since you can't sue for infringement without registration, if you make it so you can't register the copyright, you've basically made it unenforceable even if it might abstractly exist.) > I anal IANAL should really be kept together and capitalized. > but I have a publicly available GitHub repo which shall go unnamed where most of the heavy lifting is by Claude and Gemini. If I can't copyright this code, does that mean I can't license it under AGPL? Absolutely. AGPL is a copyright license. If you have no copyright, you can't enforce any licensing restrictions. You can obviously include uncopyrightable-because-of-how-it-was-generated (and therefore public domain, unless it is violating someone else's copyright) code along with other code that is AGPL licensed, but you can't enforce the AGPL terms on the code you don't have a copyright too, because the copyright is what gives you permission to prohibit uses of the exclusive rights of copyright (copying, derivative works, etc.) that you haven't licensed. > If someone copied some code from my repo, does that somehow now taint their code as well? No, if they copied legally-unprotected code from your repo, it has no adverse effect on their repo. They, too, cannot enforce any licensing restrictions on the unprotected code, because neither you nor they have a copyright on it to enforce, but it doesn't adversely impact their ability to enforce their license on any of the code they have that is protected by a copyright.
heavyset_go 1y ago
Your modifications are owned by you.
Gigachad 1y ago
How would this even be enforced? If I privately used AI to generate some code and then post it on github. How could someone verify if it was written by me or AI to decide if copyright applies or not?

mcny 1y ago

> Probably because AI generated code cannot be copyrighted. And the second reason it's not as good as AI sellers tell you. Is this true? I anal but I have a publicly available GitHub repo which shall go unnamed where most of the heavy lifting is by Claude and Gemini. If I can't copyright this code, does that mean I can't license it under AGPL? If someone copied some code from my repo, does that somehow now taint their code as well? My application is a simple console app. The original code mostly worked. I have been updating it for the past month or so when I run this application and discover some defect. I have tried hard to avoid the temptation to write much of the code myself with this application and only made minor edits myself, opting to try coaxing an LLM to do the right thing. This is not for work or even remotely work adjacent but I have been pleasantly surprised by the code quality. It still doesn't replace a programmer but it is impressive for what is essentially a glorified autocorrect auto complete iterated a little.

heavyset_go 1y ago
> Is this true? I anal but I have a publicly available GitHub repo which shall go unnamed where most of the heavy lifting is by Claude and Gemini. If I can't copyright this code, does that mean I can't license it under AGPL? If someone copied some code from my repo, does that somehow now taint their code as well? No one knows, it's untested in court. As far as I understand, you can own and license the code you modify or create yourself, but if someone decides to copy and paste code they can prove came from an LLM that they found in your project, you don't have much of a standing to enforce your license on them.
drob518 1y ago
You own your prompts. /s
protocolture 1y ago
>Is this true? Depends. Probably not. Code produced solely by AI with no inputs or modification is not copyrightable. But theres an amount of human labor and direction you can mix in to pass that hurdle. Likely: 1. If you never tell anyone its AI created it doesnt matter 2. Someone will test this in court one day and we will discover where the line is actually drawn Until then you should follow the Terms and Conditions of the tool you use, it probably assigns you all applicable rights to the generated code. Not a lawyer etc.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > If you never tell anyone its AI created it doesn't matter If you try to register the copyright (which you legally must to sue over copyright infringement), you must state whether it was AI generated and, if it was AI generated, provide the information that supports it being copyrightable for the Copyright Office to evaluate. Falsifying this information is a crime. If it ever goes to court and the code did not provably exist before AI coding became common, you will be probably be questioned about it, and failing to respond truthfully is, again, a crime. So, when talking about the ability to claim and enforce legal rights, "if you never tell anyone about it", means, "if you are willing to actively and criminally lie". > Until then you should follow the Terms and Conditions of the tool you use, it probably assigns you all applicable rights to the generated code. It probably explicitly doesn't claim such rights (because the tool owner has no basis for claiming them, especially since they may not even exist), but it can't "assign" you anything the party offering the T&C's doesn't have in the first place, and even if it tried to that assignment would have no effect.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    >If you try to register the copyright Which legal jurisdiction? Because I don't have to register shit? >You don’t need to register for copyright in Australia. The moment an idea or creative concept is documented on paper or electronically it is automatically protected by copyright in Australia. Copyright protection is free and automatic under the Copyright Act 1968. >It probably explicitly doesn't claim such rights Most I have read assign everything to the user, Midjourney being an outlier because it reserves the right to distribute and remix your work without a bigger license fee. They do this for practical reasons, they don't want to be seen to own anything that might be associated with criminal activity. Sudowrite has their terms reproduced human readable. > We understand it's super important for you to retain ownership over the content you create, so whether you use Sudowrite to brainstorm, enhance your ideas, or fine-tune your writing, all the writing you generate remains yours. When you input text into Sudowrite and use its features to generate or improve content, the output is based on your initial input and creative direction. This means that the resulting content, enriched or transformed by Sudowrite, is considered your intellectual property. You have initiated the creative process, and therefore, the contributions made by Sudowrite in response to your inputs are yours to own, use, and distribute as you see fit.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> Is this true? It is true that products of purely a prompt passed through an AI and returned cannot be copyrighted in the US currently, whether a particular body of code that involves AI generation but has a more involved workflow can be copyrighted is a case by case question (for copyright registration you need to document the actual human and AI process and present it to the copyright office and they will make a decision; if you didn't do this at the time, you've probably accidentally rendered it unprotectable even if would have been were the facts documented. Technically, copyright exists at creation without registration, but since you can't sue for infringement without registration, if you make it so you can't register the copyright, you've basically made it unenforceable even if it might abstractly exist.) > I anal IANAL should really be kept together and capitalized. > but I have a publicly available GitHub repo which shall go unnamed where most of the heavy lifting is by Claude and Gemini. If I can't copyright this code, does that mean I can't license it under AGPL? Absolutely. AGPL is a copyright license. If you have no copyright, you can't enforce any licensing restrictions. You can obviously include uncopyrightable-because-of-how-it-was-generated (and therefore public domain, unless it is violating someone else's copyright) code along with other code that is AGPL licensed, but you can't enforce the AGPL terms on the code you don't have a copyright too, because the copyright is what gives you permission to prohibit uses of the exclusive rights of copyright (copying, derivative works, etc.) that you haven't licensed. > If someone copied some code from my repo, does that somehow now taint their code as well? No, if they copied legally-unprotected code from your repo, it has no adverse effect on their repo. They, too, cannot enforce any licensing restrictions on the unprotected code, because neither you nor they have a copyright on it to enforce, but it doesn't adversely impact their ability to enforce their license on any of the code they have that is protected by a copyright.

heavyset_go 1y ago

Your modifications are owned by you.

Gigachad 1y ago

How would this even be enforced? If I privately used AI to generate some code and then post it on github. How could someone verify if it was written by me or AI to decide if copyright applies or not?