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Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

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Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#321

Post by FrostKiwi »

alienll wrote: post #313

This is the same shape as the image cases. Zarya of the Dawn already settled it for Midjourney output: human-written elements were protected, AI-generated images were not. The character design didn't get copyright even though the human picked, prompted, and curated. Code isn't different. Prompting Claude to produce a function is closer to prompting Midjourney to produce a frame than to writing the function yourself.…

> But a compiler is deterministic — same input, same output. An LLM isn't.

Temperature 0 determinism is subject to active research. NVIDIA tried but failed so far, DeepSeek V4 seems to have done it. I hope judges won't be swayed by this an AI generated code will classified as uncopyrightable, just like Images are.

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#323

Post by habinero »

RealityVoid wrote: post #263
gspr wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I write code, what I write and how I write it is informed by having read countless source code files over my education and my career. Just as I ingest all that experience to fine-tune how my later code is written, so does the LLM from the code it's seen. You are presumably human. We have granted humans specific exemptions in copyright law. We have not granted that to LLMs. Why are we so eager to?

Ok, so I use the LLM. I use the tool. Can I now apply the exemption to me? Are you telling me that I can use the thing, but I can't use it if I process it through an LLM? It get slippery, fast.

No, that's how copyright normally works.

If I write a story, I can put it online. That doesn't mean it's ok to take that story and publish it in an anthology.

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#324

Post by habinero »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #319
jacquesm wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how that works. You warrant you wrote the code yourself, then it is found your code infringes on code owned by other entities. Now you have a tough choice: admit you lied about writing your code yourself tainting all of the code you claim you wrote since these tools became available or stand and take the infringement penalty which could be very substantial. Judges and courts don't like playing silly games…

>I've sued two parties for copyright infringement and won and a third settled out of court for a substantial sum. You don't tell a judge you don't need to prove you wrote the code, that's an automatic loss. Then there are such things as expert witnesses who will interview you and check how much you know about the code you claim you wrote. This doesn't really make sense; in no way can an "expert" interview definitivel…

They don't need to prove it 100%. They just have to show that it's likely you did.

I believe the standard can be as low as "more likely than not".

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#325

Post by buzer »

appz3 wrote: post #276

[flagged]

How do you exactly read that article in that way?

50(1) states that AI systems which interact directly with public must inform that they are interacting with AI system.

50(2) states that AI generated synthetic audio, image, video or text content must be marked as such. However this requirement applies to "providers" of AI systems. And according Article 1(3) that is:

> ‘provider’ means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body that develops an AI system or a general-purpose AI model or that has an AI system or a general-purpose AI model developed and places it on the market or puts the AI system into service under its own name or trademark, whether for payment or free of charge;

So it sounds like it would apply to e.g. Anthropic via Claude Code, not to users of Claude Code.

It's also unclear if this would apply to the compiled output or not.

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#326

Post by alienll »

FrostKiwi wrote: post #321
alienll wrote: post #313

This is the same shape as the image cases. Zarya of the Dawn already settled it for Midjourney output: human-written elements were protected, AI-generated images were not. The character design didn't get copyright even though the human picked, prompted, and curated. Code isn't different. Prompting Claude to produce a function is closer to prompting Midjourney to produce a frame than to writing the function yourself.…

> But a compiler is deterministic — same input, same output. An LLM isn't. Temperature 0 determinism is subject to active research. NVIDIA tried but failed so far, DeepSeek V4 seems to have done it. I hope judges won't be swayed by this an AI generated code will classified as uncopyrightable, just like Images are.

Fair point on temp-0. But I don't think determinism is what the courts will hang it on. A deterministic LLM still makes the expressive choices — naming, structure, control flow — that the human didn't make. The image cases didn't turn on whether you could re-roll the same Midjourney frame. They turned on who made the creative decisions. Same logic should hold for code.

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#327

Post by alienll »

Onavo wrote: post #318
alienll wrote: post #313

This is the same shape as the image cases. Zarya of the Dawn already settled it for Midjourney output: human-written elements were protected, AI-generated images were not. The character design didn't get copyright even though the human picked, prompted, and curated. Code isn't different. Prompting Claude to produce a function is closer to prompting Midjourney to produce a frame than to writing the function yourself.…

But is there anything stopping a human from applying for copyright in their own name? Does the fact that somebody can recreate the prompt invalidate their claim?

Filing isn't the gate, registration is.

Copyright Office requires you to disclose AI involvement and disclaim the AI-generated parts. Zarya of the Dawn is the example — applicant filed for the whole graphic novel, got partial registration on the human-written text, refused on the Midjourney images. The reproducibility of the prompt isn't really the test. The test is whether a human made the expressive choices.

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#328

Post by tick_tock_tick »

appz3 wrote: post #276

[flagged]

No one really cares about EU law. Even the EU itself if it's inconvenient. Hell half their government website still don't comply with GDPR (probably almost all if you don't conveniently ignore the USA shield act).

They'll fine some USA companies and we'll end up with another cookie banner at the start of every piece of software and some random hacker news user will claim that's absolutely not what the law wants or needs but everyone will settle on it even the website's of bureaucracy that made the law.

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#329

Post by dang »

alienll wrote: post #327
Onavo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is there anything stopping a human from applying for copyright in their own name? Does the fact that somebody can recreate the prompt invalidate their claim?

Filing isn't the gate, registration is. Copyright Office requires you to disclose AI involvement and disclaim the AI-generated parts. Zarya of the Dawn is the example — applicant filed for the whole graphic novel, got partial registration on the human-written text, refused on the Midjourney images. The reproducibility of the prompt isn't really the test. The test is whether a human made the expressive choices.

Your comments are getting classified by our software as LLM-generated or (more likely) LLM-edited. It's impossible to be certain, of course, but if this is the case—can you please not do this? It's not allowed here - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079.

LLMs are amazing of course and we use them heavily ourselves - but not for modifying text that is to be posted to HN. Doing so leaves imprints on the language that readers are increasingly becoming allergic to, and we want HN to be a place human conversation.

Re: Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?

#330

Post by elfly »

beej71 wrote: post #91
senaevren wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta's confidence almost certainly rests on the employment contracts and IP assignment clauses, not on a legal theory that AI output is inherently copyrightable. The enterprise agreement with Anthropic assigns outputs to the licensee. The employment contract assigns work product to Meta. Those two documents together give Meta a defensible ownership position regardless of the authorship question. The interesting gap i…

I don't understand how a company can have IP copyright rights on code that is inherently uncopyrightable (in the unlikely event scotus rules that way).

Worst case, meta will sue the programmer who produced infringing code.

I mean if the code is not copyrighteable that does not mean anything; it's just public domain code except that meta will just use good old security by obscurity to protect it. If somehow a meta programmer vibes code, say, VVVVVV, and Terry Cavanagh recognizes it on his facebook feed and sues meta, and wins, all that will happen is that meta will take down the copy of VVVVVV, will fire and sue the engineer that vibe coded it and call it a day.

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