One thing I'd like to clarify here is that copyright is not limited to verbatim copying. Copyright covers expression, and software is treated like any written work. This is kind of funny, because, in a novel, you can have a copyright in a plot, or in a character, or in a lot of other elements that are hard to pin down.
One test we talk about is abstraction, filtration, comparison. We abstract the code to the highest level of abstraction that is still copyrightable, filter out non-copyrightable bits (such as functional aspects under the merger doctrine, since copyright can only cover the expressive aspects that are not functional, but this is a trickier rule than it might sound like, software in general is considered expressive), and then compare what's left. This test is difficult to go through. It results in a lot of expensive litigation. You can compare for verbatim copying relatively easily. You can't practically do A-F-C on your own and promise us that there's no real issue. Using LLM-generated code is fundamentally risky. There's no telling what copyright issues might be hiding inside. I appreciate that you intend to trace and understand much of the code you're generating, but unless you understand every other browser's entire code base very deeply, from conventions to variable names to every other little thing... There's no way to guarantee that you own it, or, again, that anybody owns it. I don't mean to suggest that there isn't a way to overcome or accept these risks on a practical level. But there's no way to suggest that these risks aren't there. Not yet. Regards, Daniel J. Hakimi B.S. Philosophy, RPI 2012 B.S. Computer Science, RPI 2012 J.D. Cardozo Law 2015 On Thu, Oct 22, 2026, 06:59 Andreas Røsdal <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 11:13 AM Gard Spreemann <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Andreas Røsdal <[email protected]> writes: >> >> > Commercial Terms, §B: the customer owns its Outputs, and “Anthropic >> hereby assigns to Customer its right, title and interest (if any) in >> > and to Outputs.” >> > >> > https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms >> >> Again, I am not a lawyer, but this merely states that Anthropic does not >> retain claim ownership over the output of the model, not that you can >> necessarily claim copyright over it. >> >> For example, we all agree that the words "hello world" are not >> copyrightable (by anyone). Do you really think that Anthropic's terms >> mean that as soon as their model outputs "hello world" to you, you can >> claim copyright on those words? Of course you cannot – so clearly, >> Anthropic's terms can't conjure out of thin air your ability to >> copyright something. Thus those terms are no proof of anything, and are >> meaningless to the discussion. Nobody here is saying that Anthropic's >> rights are the reason your copyright is in doubt. >> >> > Each and every improvement to the browser had been incremental, small > improvement, which improves or fixes one thing I ask it to fix, and then I > verify the results afterwards. It's like an artist painting a painting, one > stroke at a time. > > > Andreas > >
