this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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Iirc it's even funnier: the relevant case law comes from Naruto v Slater. A case about a monkey taking a selfie and a photographer failing to acquire copyright of it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute).
The copyright belonged to whoever shot the selfie, but because it was the monkey and animals aren't juristic entities, they can not hold copyright. Therefore, as it stands and as new case law outlines, AIs are compared to monkeys, in that the copyright would fall onto them but it's not a juristic entities either, and therefore copyright just vanishes and no one can claim it.
The wikipedia page suggests current cases on generative AI directly build on this.
It was an especially interesting case because there was a question of whether the photographer lied about who actually took the picture. So he could either claim the monkey took it an lose the copyright or claim he took it and have it lose all value.
See that's kind of what I'm talking about. The monkeys who pressed the buttons to make the AI Generate the code isn't the computer, it isn't the user, it's the employees at the AI company. My advice is that until laws are properly in place that we shouldn't use AI for any generative industry.
The AI company didn't do shit. They stole apples from someone elses tree and threw it in a blender. They didn't make the apples, nor did they buy them, so they don't legally own the juice.
While I agree with the general idea, please don't call piracy "stealing". It's not stealing, whether you do it or some giant corpo.
While I agree², their use of "steal" makes sense in the analogy because the apple doesn't belong to the "thief"; besides, you can't pirate an apple
Evidently you can!
Don't call copyright infringement "piracy," either.
If the AI produces verbatim the licensed works of others then the others own it.
If the AI took individual unlicensed elements and pieced them together then the AI Company owns it.
In any and every case, neither the User nor the Public Domain owns it. Moral of the story is: never use AI for anything.
The AI company stole other people's code, threw it into a blender, and is selling the output. They didn't do any real work, and they don't own the materials. They have no legal claim over the result. You do not own a car you made from stolen parts, no matter how many cars you stole from.
Stop trying to imply your buddies at AI companies have value.
We appear to be talking in circles.
I'm literally sitting here telling people it isn't safe to use AI Code, you're doing the opposite, and you're accusing me of being buddies with the Slop Companies?
Yes. You're giving the companies WAY too much credit for owning the blender they throw stolen content into, and you're even trying to give them ownership of what clearly doesn't belong to them. I'm sure they're just as eager to claim they did all the work and license the materials they use as you are.
I try not to call people idiots in debates, so there's really only one reason you'd be giving them so much support.
I guarantee you that the AI Companies don't give a single fuck about our opinion on copyrightable status, they've made an industry off of ignoring copyright laws entirely, and are instead salivating at the idea of a bunch of fucking idiots putting their slop code in everything so that they can try to enforce rights on it later.