Who owns AI-generated code? Copyright explained (US)

Updated Oct 26, 2026 · Sources listed at the end

In the United States, output generated entirely by AI cannot be copyrighted; protection exists only where a human author determined sufficient expressive elements, for example by writing or substantially modifying and arranging the code. Prompts alone are not enough.¹ This is general information, not legal advice.

What the Copyright Office said

In Part 2 of its report on copyright and AI (29 January 2025), the U.S. Copyright Office concluded that generative AI outputs “can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements”. That can include a human-authored work perceptible in the output, or creative arrangements or modifications of the output, “but not the mere provision of prompts”.¹²

What the courts said

In Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.C. Circuit, decided 18 March 2025), the court held that an AI system cannot be the author of a copyrighted work because the Copyright Act of 1976 requires work to be authored in the first instance by a human being.³

What this means for AI-written code

• Code you write or meaningfully edit is more likely to be protected than code accepted as-is.
• Vendor terms decide who holds whatever rights exist between you and the tool provider; read them.
• Generated code can occasionally match public code. GitHub notes that Copilot “may generate code suggestions that match code in the training set”, which raises licence questions.⁴

Tools mentioned

• GitHub Copilot: free plan, paid from $10/mo

Sources

1. U.S. Copyright Office NewsNet 1060: Part 2 of AI report (29 Jan 2025)
2. U.S. Copyright Office: Copyright and Artificial Intelligence
3. Thaler v. Perlmutter, No. 23-5233 (D.C. Cir., decided 18 Mar 2025)
4. GitHub Docs: Responsible use of Copilot inline suggestions