Who owns the code written by Claude Code?

Copyright for AI-generated code depends on whether there is meaningful human authorship. Beyond simply instructing a goal, copyright is more likely to be recognized when it includes creative decisions such as designing the architecture and reviewing, rejecting, and restructuring the AI's output.

Regardless of whether copyright is established for the code, under the work-for-hire principle in employment contracts, AI-assisted code created using company resources and licensed tools is very likely to belong to the company. In particular, using AI tools provided by a company for personal projects can lead to IP rights disputes, so it is safer to use separate equipment and accounts for personal projects.

Additionally, if the AI substantially copies code under a copyleft license such as GPL/LGPL from its training data, there is a risk of license contamination, which would require the entire codebase to be released under the same license. Currently, license scanning of AI codebases is also being treated as an important item in the due diligence process for corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A).