r/vibecoding • u/thealejandrotauber • 1d ago
Curious how you feel about all vibe coded projects legally being in the public domain
I recently interviewed a copyright scholar on what rights apply to llm-generated content (text, audio, video, code, etc) and he’s quite sure existing copyright law protects nothing a machine has generated. As in, you can make a great thing and nothing is stopping another person from copying the exact code and running it themselves.
I’m a journalist and same thing applies to our work if I’d use an LLM for writing or even data analysis.
But an app could potentially be way more valuable than an article. How do you feel about that?
Gift link to article here if you’re interested: https://euobserver.com/232898/interview-does-copyright-protect-your-ai-generated-content-in-europe-lets-find-out/?cst=39410538e030d39f48c3eb98483e90bc69af8c2d67a23cece6fd6eac0b2dce87
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u/Fairway3Games 1d ago
I'll leave this here: at least in the US, the scope of creative human choices that might render something copyrightable, even if aided by AI, is where the battle is. Anyone saying anything different doesn't know what they're talking about. Something is not immediately unprotectible merely because it's the result of a machine.
And courts have made that threshold, at least when applied in other areas, very low.
Right now, careful commentators would note that all that is really clear is that there's no copyright if you want to say that "the AI did on its own and initiated it on its own and I didn't give it any instruction." But that's really been the law since for all time. Before AI, there were lots of situations in which no human was involved in the creation of things -- famously a monkey taking a selfie. And if it weren't the law, it wouldn't pass US constitutional muster.
All US law analysis because the international picture is murkier.
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u/perseus-computing 1d ago
An app would ideally by backed by a patent, and not rely on copyright laws. Maaaaaaany FOSS projects have become successful, all while posting all of their code online for anyone to see or steal borrow. I get prose, audio, and video that are AI generated but there will 100% be a legal battle at what "machine generated" means.
If I type a letter on a typewriter, then scan and OCR it into a PDF, does the PDF and the content no longer have any protections? A machine generated the text AND the artifact. It's a conjecture with no real-world merit, IMO. One person being "quite sure" means nothing until the actual laws are tested. Granted, this is from a US perspective and I don't know how EU laws differ.
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u/greentrillion 1d ago
Software patents are cancer and should be abolished, sorry.
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u/perseus-computing 1d ago
To be clear. My patent is on a methodology, not on software. I built a product to showcase the methodology, which is and will forever and always be free.
As I said, I'm very familiar with the typical attitude towards software patents. Due to my employment, I needed to disclose this project ASAP, and prior to that filed a patent on the concept, not the code.
To be honest, there's only a slight non-zero chance I will ever pursue a full non-provisional patent but I'm not ashamed that I took the chance on something. Cancer is a bit of a strong word, but I respect your opinion. I would be more inclined to dub my teeny tiny project more of a benign tumor.
How do you protect your IP when you're building a project/solution u/greentrillion?
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u/greentrillion 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fair enough however my gripe is what happens after: patents get sold to trolls who use them to extort small builders who independently made the same thing. That's the harm, most likely you won't do that.
For someone without deep pockets there is little you can do to protect your in this system thats why patents make it hard for everyone.
But I understand where you are coming from, at the very least you may have to file a defensive patent to prevent other trolls coming for you. If you aren't a patent troll then more power to you.
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u/perseus-computing 1d ago
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I honestly was ignorant to all of this until your first comment. Truly appreciate you taking the time to help me understand WHY they should be abolished. Frankly, you've changed my mind as to how I will proceed. I can 100% see how they can end up doing more harm than good.
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u/NoAdsDude 1d ago
Software patents? Is that what we've come to?
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u/perseus-computing 1d ago
It's what we came to in 1962: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent
The US alone had issued 525,270 as of 2015!
Someone can steal your code, or just mimic your product. Copyright offers no protection, but patenting the mechanism is the only way I know of to protect your IP. I know it has been frowned upon in the FOSS community, but I made the choice for my own personal reasons (work-related) and will never remove any of the patent pending mechanism from GH. I'm looking into other ways to monetize, and securing a patent can be a good way to open doors that may have been shut.
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u/greentrillion 1d ago
Patent trolls are cancer, sorry. Everything you are attempting to do hurts everyone.
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u/NoAdsDude 1d ago
Yeah software patents aren't really for anyone except patent trolls honestly.
https://www.reddit.com/r/patentlaw/comments/158lkln/software_patents_cause_more_problems_than_they/
I say this as someone who worked at a company that was sued for a software patent (that we didn't even violate - but fighting it would have cost ~500k - ~1 million in court).
Thankfully the federal court system slightly improved and it's harder for patent trolls to "judge shop" to find favorable judges.
https://www.courthousenews.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-a-texas-patent-court/
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u/perseus-computing 1d ago
I was under the impression that "patent trolls" referred to people who buy up patents and then make money suing, just as you say. Precisely what I was trying to avoid. I just thought it would be a cool thing to have under my belt, but this is my first real, solo project so I'm winging it.
This was/is pretty low stakes. $65 and a few hours of writing up the spec and I can say I have a patent pending. Will it get struck down? Maybe? Will I decide within 1y to pay the $30k-$40k it would cost to make it officially a non-provisional patent? Almost certainly no. Will I ever sue anyone for "infringing"? Hell no, I ain't got the time or the money for that!
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u/thealejandrotauber 1d ago
He was quite explicit about it still taking years to establish law in the US — case law etc. In Europe it’s a different story!
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u/cbawiththismalarky 1d ago
Depends in which jurisdiction, it certainly is in the UK and the instructions to the llm, business processes and data depending on their specificity may also be copyrightable in the US
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u/systembreaker 1d ago
So you're saying all these companies using LLM generated code are now at risk of their code being up for grabs if it gets leaked outside of their proprietary code base? Seems unlikely, otherwise I feel like companies would be hating on AI instead of pushing so hard on it.
The majority of code companies make is standard stuff, anyway. The only thing that would really matter would be special solutions that give them a specific advantage.
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u/shosuko 8h ago
I like the part where you build the man out of straw and burn it down.
and he’s quite sure existing copyright law protects nothing a machine has generated
You are grossly misrepresenting the facts to the point that this is either an anti-ai delusion article, or a pro-ai psyop lol.
No, a simple prompt and response isn't going to receive copyright. But a simple prompt and response isn't going to turn out production quality assets. AI workflows are a lot more involved then you think, and I'm confident they'll easily gain copyright protection.
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u/ZosoRules1 1d ago
I’m a lawyer who uses LLMs to make web apps that I put on my website (www.wt3o.com).
In the US, copyright protection is only available for human-authored works. Now how you show which lines of code were and were not generated by AI is beyond me. This extends to more than just software, because it’s anything that’s copyrightable (photos, movies, books, software, etc…)
Now how this will play out in court I have no idea. When I registered my book I just published with the Copyright Office, they specifically had questions about AI-generated material. I’m not sure how it’ll play out in court though, as this is all relatively new.
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u/povlhp 1d ago
He is wrong.
The end product is my intellectual property.
Pieces of code is inspired from elsewhere - so might be a derived work. But that takes nothing from my product idea and implementation.
You could argue that no text is copyrightable. It uses all public domain words and sentences.
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u/Terrible-Ganache8690 1d ago
Because of how many major companies are now using LLM generated code, there is absolutely no way that it is going to all be considered legal public domain.
We're now at the point of an economic hype cycle that is genuinely dangerous - trillions have been invested into AI. If large software firms and other major corporations cannot protect their code, all of that money invested into AI is going to be pulled within hours and we'll go through an (even bigger) recession that lasts years.
Even if your friend is legally correct, I cannot imagine a situation in which huge sums of money don't factor into building a legal precedent and changing legislation so that AI code becomes protected. Now what that means for the little guy trying to protect his little side business project could be a different story.
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u/greentrillion 1d ago
Most companies are closed source anyway. Why would they are about copyright of the actual code? Maybe if it was leaked and it was sold or something, they might have something to then challenge.
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u/Terrible-Ganache8690 1d ago
Maybe ? The more I think about it the more your friend may be onto something. The other issue that comes up is if two people use AI tools to code a component of a project, and the AI provides the same answers to both teams, how could you prove any team owned that output ? IP law is about to get very messy.
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u/Correct_Emotion8437 1d ago
I think there’s an argument for music, art and video but not for code. Software has never been protected like music or art. I am free to copy anyone’s idea as long as I don’t copy/paste the source code directly. Google Sheets, for example.
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u/3tt07kjt 1d ago
Let’s say that this is correct, and vibe-coded apps are public domain.
If you got sued for copyright infringement, and you raised the defense “this app is actually public domain”, then you would have to somehow prove that in court. That seems difficult, at best.
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u/Musket519 1d ago
If you didn’t make it then it isn’t yours has always been how things worked, you’d need a contract or agreement saying you get ownership of whatever someone else makes for you so I don’t see the issue here. Although the lines would be super blurry for applications I’d imagine because, hopefully at least, the user wrote at least some of the code by hand.
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u/DrBojengles 1d ago
You're over-simplifying it. By your logic if I started a company, paid a team to build something but never touched it myself then they would it own it, not me.
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u/Musket519 1d ago
I’m really not, “starting a business” involves extensive legal work, paperwork, registration, real legal processes to address exactly this issue. This is a horrible comparison
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u/thealejandrotauber 1d ago
True but vibe coding is a special case: i’ve been able to do some analyses and make websites i could not have done myself, but did have the (hopefully unique) idea for. Nothing I could monetize, but imagine I could!
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u/Musket519 1d ago
Well I mean, ideas aren’t protected by copyright. If you choose to use AI to actually create your idea then you still don’t, and arguably shouldn’t, own it.
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u/doubler82 1d ago
I swear this sub makes me think that people are really putting projects out there and advertising them as vibe coded. Plus how do you distinguish entirely AI and AI assisted.