[hnbad]

Fun fact: because AI written works don't have copyright (in the EU at least) and the level of prompting many people engage in doesn't suffice to create a copyrightable "work" and software licenses require you to actually be able to grant a license using rights you hold on a work, not only are many AI generated "works" not actually protected by copyright but by selling licenses you're actually in breach of contract law and may end up owing the licensee software you don't have.

[vasco]

And nothing happened and zero people got in trouble over it.

- Narrator

[Muromec]

...So far

[Slothrop99]

IMO the real "fun fact" is that supposed "IP monopolists" like Microsoft and Oracle's lawyers are apparently totally fine with this stuff.

So obviously people are going to take their lead and not get legal advice from some greasy dweeb at the bottom of HN.

[hnbad]

I would strongly recommend against taking legal advice from anyone who is not your lawyer, whether they're a greasy dweeb or working for Microsoft's or Oracle's legal department. Your business goals likely don't align with theirs so I'm not sure what relevance their practices have to you - plus they're very much not in the "selling software" business anymore (contrary to what many people still seem to believe).

I think a better way to make the point you were trying to make is that if you're working in a startup, your code is probably ultimately worthless to begin with because your company's success hinges on its ability to increase its valuation by orders of magnitude between investment rounds, not by delivering value. SpaceX has demonstrated the ridiculous extremes to which this can be done even when you're burning money by having its IPO valued based on tech it doesn't have solving problems that don't exist (yet) with money it doesn't have so there's no law in basketball saying you can't vibecode your way to a successful exit.

But if your job is tied to your ability to grant usage rights on intellectual property you create, you should probably talk to an actual IP and contract lawyer before deciding to vibecode your way through it, rather than just assuming it's fine because Microsoft sells AI services.