There’s so much FOMO right now around AI that no one is thinking clearly. I wouldn’t be so confident in your company.
replyI would bet you any amount of money that metas ownership over CC-generated code is never challenged or threatened
replyOk since you’re that confident—ten thousand to one odds. I’ll put up $100.
replyTo evaluate the legal risks of using AI generated code, let’s consider how many lawsuits there have been over these concerns.
replyInadvertent copyleft license violations: probably 0 lawsuits
Competitor copied your software, you could not defend your rights in court because it was made with AI: probably also 0
Users of agentic AI for software development: >10 million
The thinking here seems pretty clear to me.
This is a terrible take. Complex litigation takes longer to play out than the time span that agents have existed.
replyMeta'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 is for developers using personal accounts or consumer plans on side projects, where neither of those documents exists.
replyI 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).
replyWorst case, meta will sue the programmer who produced infringing code.
replyI 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.