What happens when a contributor does not own the copyright of the code?

Tamas_Papp
Wed, 21 May 2025 09:33:08 +0000
Offtopic

I recently got a PR with a minor contribution to one of my (MIT-licensed) Julia packages. The author honestly disclosed that it was made using an AI tool.

I checked the licensing of said tool (Claude) and it actually says

we assign to you all of our right, title, and interest—if any—in Outputs

The important part is highlighted, it is an escape clause for the possibility that the tool did not actually have the rights.

Regardless of code generating AI tools, I am wondering what happens if code is contributed to an MIT-licensed project that the contributor did not have rights to (either because of a mistake, ignorance, malicious intent, or using an LLM to write it).

6 posts - 4 participants