That would effectively rely on the doctrine of trade secret rather than copyright. A major difference is that accidental or malicious disclosure of a trade secret usually ends the trade secret status, forever. In an alternate universe where computer source code had never been copyrightable, famous leaks (Microsoft Windows, 2004; id Quake, 1997) would have effectively open-sourced those codebases, and other companies could have openly and legally used them.
As source code becomes more of a generated artifact of software development the way object code is an artifact of compilation, we might be moving toward a world where secrecy, constant forward motion, and moats become even more of an asset (vs plain IP protection).
I do think what happens in this case is SCOTUS will ultimately rule that AI-built code is copyrightable while art is not. I'm sure there's some rationale thick enough for them.
It's strange how hard it is to think of a situation that could lead to that case. Who would bother filing an infringement lawsuit for code whose very existence proves that it can be derived by anyone from LLM prompts? What would the damages even be?
Interesting world we live in. Soon it'll be faster to one-shot the tiny slice of functionality I need from Adobe CS than to navigate their subscription cancellation obstacle course.
> Soon it'll be faster to one-shot the tiny slice of functionality I need from Adobe CS than to navigate their subscription cancellation obstacle course.
This is precisely why copyright is practically obsolete. You can't legally forbid someone from paraphrasing, and now we can easily automate it to just within the threshold set by legal cases.
I view this as a massive personal challenge. Can I write instructional materials that are better than an AI summary? I'm going to keep trying, even as books become obsolete.
