If I write a program of 1000 lines of code, with AI features turned off, then I turned the AI features on and use a completion to edit one function, can my program not be copyrighted? (I expect/hope you’ll say: “Of course it’s still eligible for copyright”)

How about if I write 100 lines myself, turn the AI features on, vibe code 100 lines, and repeat this for five cycles? Half the functions are AI coded and half the functions I wrote myself. How about if I just tell Claude to write the program?

And what if I tell Claude to write the program, and then spend six months tweaking most of the lines of code?

I struggle to see a specific and obvious point where a line should be drawn. It seems intuitive to me that if I spend at least a few days worth of effort on a code base (whether tweaking, correcting, or directing AI to do targeted refactors), that is meaningful human authorship even if it has thousands of lines of generated code.

I can, however, acknowledge the fairness that something which is simply one-shot output probably shouldn’t merit protection. But really, in any of these cases, it’s going to be pretty hard to prove after the fact exactly what the proportion of generated code to human authorship is, so idk how a court will really tell whether a repo with 20,000 LOC is one-shot or actually had a person spend a few weeks tweaking it.

> And what if I tell Claude to write the program

Why should this be any different than when telling/paying a human to write the program?

You're free to enter an agreement assigning all rights to the employer or the worker, to license the work ir/revokably and/or non/transferably. There is no need to wait for a court decision to understand what the results will be.