alt Hacker NewsDidn't a court in the US declare that AI generated content cannot be copyrighted? I think that could be a problem for AI generated code. Fine for projects with an MIT/BSD license I suppose, but GPL relies on copyright.
However, if the code has been slightly changed by a human, it can be copyrighted again. I think.
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No, a court did not declare that. The case involved a person trying to register a work with only the AI system listed as author. The Supreme Court decided that you can't do that, you need to list a human being as author to register a work with the Copyright Office. This stems from existing precedent where someone tried to register a photograph with the monkey photographer listed as author.
I don't believe the idea that humans can or can't claim copyright over AI-authored works has been tested. The Copyright Office says your prompt doesn't count and you need some human-authored element in the final work. We'll have to see.
> Didn't a court in the US declare that AI generated content cannot be copyrighted?
No, my understanding is that AI generated content can't be copyrighted by the AI. A human can still copyright it, however.
Public domain code is GPL compatible
Thaler v. Perlmutter said that an AI system cannot be listed as the sole author of a work - copyright requires a human author.
US Copyright Office guidance in 2023 said work created with the help of AI can be registered as long as there is "sufficient human creative input". I don't believe that has ever been qualified with respect to code, but my instinct is that the way most people use coding agents (especially for something like kernel development) would qualify.