Under the US Copyright Office's January 2025 report, purely AI-generated material is not protected by copyright, and prompts alone do not give enough control to count as authorship. Human contributions, such as code you write, select, arrange or meaningfully modify, can be protected. This is a general reading, not legal advice.
What the report actually says
Part 2 of the Office's report on copyright and artificial intelligence deals with the copyrightability of outputs. Its conclusions are short and worth reading in the original. In summary form:
- Using AI as an assistive tool does not by itself remove protection from the finished work.
- Copyright protects the original expression created by a human author, even if the work also includes AI-generated material.
- Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or to material where human control over the expressive elements is insufficient.
- Whether human input is enough is decided case by case.
- Based on how current generally available tools work, prompts do not alone provide sufficient control.
The report also says authors can claim the creative selection, coordination or arrangement of material in outputs, and creative modifications of them.
Terms worth knowing
Human authorship. The requirement, in the US, that a protected work come from a human author.
Assistive use. Using a tool to help you create, as opposed to the tool producing the expression for you.
De minimis. The Office's registration guidance says that if a work contains more than a small amount of AI-generated material, the applicant should disclose it and describe the human contribution.
What this means for a software team
The report is about copyright in the United States and about works, not about security. Code raises questions it does not directly answer, so treat the points below as planning prompts and ask counsel.
| Situation | Planning question |
|---|---|
| A whole module was generated and committed unchanged | Is there human expression you could point to in it? |
| A developer wrote the design and tests, and edited the output | Which parts reflect human creative choices? |
| You sell source code or rely on trade secrets | Do your contracts rely on copyright alone? |
| You are being acquired | Can you describe how AI was used in the codebase? |
Steps to take now
- Record where AI assistants are used, by repository and team. Commit trailers help; see how to label AI-assisted commits.
- Keep design notes, tests and review comments. They show human decisions.
- Do not rely on copyright alone for protection of key code. Access controls and contract terms also matter.
- Add an AI-use question to diligence and customer questionnaires you answer, and answer it factually.
- Ask counsel how this applies in other countries where you operate, since this report covers US law only.
Where Safeguard fits
Safeguard produces SBOMs and dependency inventories, and can show which components entered a repository and when, which supports the records in steps 1 and 4. You can try a free scan.
Try it yourself
Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen.
Click through the inventory and look at how each component is recorded with its source and version.
Quick check
Can I copyright code an AI wrote from my prompt alone?
According to the Office, prompts alone do not currently provide sufficient control for authorship, so purely AI-generated material is not covered. Your own edits and arrangement may be.
Does this change whether AI code is secure?
No. Copyright status says nothing about vulnerabilities. Review and test AI-written code like any other.
Sources
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
