Who Owns the Code

for founders, engineering leaders, and counsel shipping AI-generated codeAI code == no author == no copyrightUnder current U.S. copyright law, purely AI-generated code has no human author, so it cannot be copyrighted and cannot be defended as an asset you truly own. ownership.sh zsh~/startup git:(main) $ whoami --code checking authorship of ./generated ... # purely AI output, no human authorship on record author: none copyright: not eligible status: unowned, undefendable ~/startup git:(main) $ assess --my-risk Our guidance applies to code generated from every AI toolthe four things teams missFour ways AI code puts ownership at riskOwnership is not a formality you fix later. It is decided by who authored the expressive work, line by line.01own_the_output.tsdoYouOwnTheOutput// verdict: noCode written entirely by an AI tool has no human author, so under U.S. copyright law it cannot be copyrighted, and you cannot own it.02vibe_coding.tsvibeCodingRealExposure// the AI did the expressive workWhen you let the AI make the creative decisions, the code is not human-authored, and code that is not human-authored is not a protectable asset.03mixed_codebase.tsmixedCodebases// you own only what you authorIn a codebase that mixes human and AI work, you own the parts a person meaningfully wrote. The AI-generated parts stay unprotected until a human reworks them.04open_source.tsopenSourceIsNotNoCopyright// a license needs an owner to grant itOpen source is not the same as no copyright. A license only holds if someone owns the code, so an open-source license placed on pure AI output has nothing to enforce.the case law, as a commit historyFour anchors already merged into the recordThese are not predictions. Each is a recent decision or report that hardened the rule: no human author, no protection. branch: us-copyright-lawcommit a1f0b7c Author: Thaler v. Perlmutter Date: Mar 2025Works created entirely by AI are not eligible for copyrightThe court confirmed that only humans can hold copyright protection; a work generated wholly by a machine has no author the law will recognize.- machine-authored work: protected+ machine-authored work: not eligiblecommit 6d24e9a Author: Thomson Reuters v. Ross Date: Feb 2025First decision to reject a fair-use defense for AI trainingThe first ruling to reject a fair-use defense for using copyrighted material to train an AI, narrowing a shield many teams assumed they had.- training on copyrighted data: fair use+ training on copyrighted data: defense rejectedcommit 0c3ab55 Author: U.S. Copyright Office report Date: Jan 2025Only meaningful human creative input is eligible for protectionThe Office stated that only portions of a work carrying meaningful human creative input are eligible for protection. The AI-generated remainder is not.+ human-authored portions: protected- AI-generated portions: unprotected next_steps.mdrun the check before your next releaseFind out what you actually ownA short assessment maps where AI-generated code sits in your stack and where your ownership quietly breaks down.