Every major US court ruling, USCO decision, and big-deal acquisition where AI code ownership came up. Eight events, in chronological order. No legalese — just what happened and what it means if you built your app on Cursor, Lovable, or Bolt.
Anonymous plaintiff developers filed a class-action against GitHub, OpenAI, and Microsoft alleging that GitHub Copilot reproduces licensed open-source code from its training data without attribution. Claims under DMCA §1202, breach of license, unfair competition.
For youFirst major lawsuit to ask: 'Can an AI assistant copy-paste open-source code into your project without you knowing — and are you on the hook for the license?' Still being litigated.
DC District Court ruled that Stephen Thaler's AI system "Creativity Machine" could not be listed as the author of a copyrighted work because copyright law requires human authorship. Court affirmed USCO's denial of registration.
For youPure-AI-generated work has no copyright. The case set the legal foundation USCO would later expand on in its 2025 AI Report.
Artists sued Stability AI alleging that Stable Diffusion was trained on their copyrighted artwork. Judge dismissed most claims with leave to amend but allowed the direct copyright infringement claim against Stability to proceed.
For youFirst real signal that courts may let "training-data is infringing" theories survive past the pleading stage. The Doe v. GitHub case is the code-side analogue.
Judge Tigar dismissed several claims (unjust enrichment, certain CDPA claims) but kept the DMCA §1202(b) (removal of copyright management information) and breach of license claims alive. The core question — whether Copilot output can violate the underlying licenses — survives.
For youThe lawsuit isn't going away. Vibe coders shipping with Copilot, Cursor, or similar tools have an active legal cloud above whether AI output may inherit licensing obligations.
Source: The Register coverage →The Ninth Circuit agreed to review key questions in the Copilot case before final judgment, accelerating the appellate timeline. Issues on appeal include the scope of DMCA §1202(b) liability for AI-mediated reproduction.
For youThe first major appellate ruling on whether AI output can violate open-source licensing is likely in 2026. Until then, the legal uncertainty stays.
Source: GitHub Copilot Litigation tracker →The US Copyright Office issued Part 2 of its AI report, concluding: (1) works without sufficient human authorship are not copyrightable; (2) prompts alone do not meet the originality threshold; (3) AI-assisted output where humans materially shape selection / arrangement / expression CAN be copyrightable for the human contribution.
For youDefines the standard your codebase has to meet to be "yours." Pure AI generation? Not protected. Heavily edited AI generation with meaningful human creative input? Protected for the human parts. Most vibe-coded apps sit in an uncertain middle zone.
Wix.com acquired Base44, an entirely vibe-coded product, for $80M. The acquisition reportedly required extended IP diligence to clarify code ownership and copyleft exposure before close.
For youAcquirers are now actively investigating AI code provenance. "Did your team write this code, or did an LLM?" became a material due-diligence question.
Source: L40 / industry coverage →Supreme Court denied certiorari in a Thaler follow-up case, leaving the DC Circuit's affirmation of USCO's no-AI-author rule as settled law for now.
For youThe "AI can't be sole author" rule is now stable. Future fights will focus on the line between human-assisted and AI-only, not on whether AI can author at all.
Source: Morgan Lewis analysis →Maintained by Comply Code. Released under CC-BY-4.0. If you’re writing about AI code copyright, link back to https://complycode.app/data/ai-code-copyright-cases and we’ll keep it updated as new rulings drop. Last updated: 2026-05-15.