Microsoft has claimed that something like 30% of the code for Windows is AI-generated. (I have not verified that they even said that, maybe that’s totally fake.) Last i checked AI-generated stuff cannot be copyrighted. Does this mean that significant portions of Windows are un-copyrightable, and MacroSlop couldn’t do a damn thing if someone leaked those parts?
And then, reservations about including slop in a software project aside, what could this mean for things like ReactOS? They’ve been careful to avoid including any MS-owned code, but nobody owns slop code.
If you can get at the 30% of the code without any human modification, then that may be in practice public domain.
Now you have to figure out which 30%, without any human modification, and have the ability to prove the specific code is AI generated.
This is why the companies do not sweat the detail that the output of the LLM might not qualify for copyright, the only way it is a problem is if they label it as such and pass it through without modification.
In the cases proving only humans can hold copyright, the human that wanted copyright had essentially bragged that the works in dispute were 100% not created by humans. One a human has done almost anything to the output, that modification is subject to copyright.
So if the company keeps the details secret and/or mixes it with human output, the copyright issue is moot.