| > Why would they have different rules for one potentially copyrightable material versus another? There is a longstanding distinction between expression (copyrightable) and facts and ideas (not copyrightable). Nor is this merely used as a binary category: the degree to which a work rests on facts and ideas, versus expression, is very much taken into account when considering the question of infringement. Classic cases involve works like maps and biographies, versus works of pure fiction. You can surely see how the expression of the former is constrained in ways in which the latter is not. The algorithm to reverse a binary tree is not subject to copyright. Nor is a court likely to accept the use of "left" and "right" as variable names as evidence of infringement. They would treat the cases differently because the cases are different. My opinion has always been that copyright law is an awkward fit for software, and remains so. That said, the iteration and edit cycle which is normal to agent-driven software development, has a rather different character than the more normal 'workflow' for art, which is: "drawing of Asuka eating an elote in front of the Chinese Theater" then picking the one the user likes the most. There's also the realpolitik to be considered: courts are simply unlikely to shut down the use of LLMs in software development, that horse has left the barn. There's always some margin between 'can' and 'will'. |