> People who vibe code don't legally own the copyright to the output
In the US at least, the PTO has not said this. They have said that artwork is not copyrightable if it was substantially "generated" with little human input. They have not said anything about software or other creative works. And certainly nothing about software that has been carefully "vibe engineered" with lots of human input, direction, and review.
It seems unlikely to me that the PTO would declare that a software project that heavily utilized an AI-based advanced autocomplete would make it not copyrightable.
Now, if you just one shot the most advanced Tetris algorithm of all time and post it on the web without any scrutiny or review, and no input, then it's probably not going to be copyrightable.
> It seems unlikely to me that the PTO would declare that a software project that heavily utilized an AI-based advanced autocomplete would make it not copyrightable.
Why would they have different rules for one potentially copyrightable material versus another?
What the PTO (courts, actually) have not said is how much and what kinds of work a human must perform to transform a machine-generated work into a copyrightable work. It could be that this would be domain specific (i.e. different rules for software and art). But totally different rules entirely for software and art? Seems unlikely to me.
> Why would they have different rules for one potentially copyrightable material versus another?
There is a longstanding distinction between expression (copyrightable) and facts and ideas (not copyrightable). Nor is this merely used as a binary category: the degree to which a work rests on facts and ideas, versus expression, is very much taken into account when considering the question of infringement.
Classic cases involve works like maps and biographies, versus works of pure fiction. You can surely see how the expression of the former is constrained in ways in which the latter is not.
The algorithm to reverse a binary tree is not subject to copyright. Nor is a court likely to accept the use of "left" and "right" as variable names as evidence of infringement.
They would treat the cases differently because the cases are different.
My opinion has always been that copyright law is an awkward fit for software, and remains so. That said, the iteration and edit cycle which is normal to agent-driven software development, has a rather different character than the more normal 'workflow' for art, which is: "drawing of Asuka eating an elote in front of the Chinese Theater" then picking the one the user likes the most.
There's also the realpolitik to be considered: courts are simply unlikely to shut down the use of LLMs in software development, that horse has left the barn. There's always some margin between 'can' and 'will'.
Yes, my understanding is that there is some test, as yet not clearly defined, in the middle of those two extremes. At one extreme you let AI make all the choices and own nothing. At the other extreme you use AI more or less like a tab complete and own everything.
In the US at least, the PTO has not said this. They have said that artwork is not copyrightable if it was substantially "generated" with little human input. They have not said anything about software or other creative works. And certainly nothing about software that has been carefully "vibe engineered" with lots of human input, direction, and review.
It seems unlikely to me that the PTO would declare that a software project that heavily utilized an AI-based advanced autocomplete would make it not copyrightable.
Now, if you just one shot the most advanced Tetris algorithm of all time and post it on the web without any scrutiny or review, and no input, then it's probably not going to be copyrightable.