Who owns code made with AI tools? A plain-words overview

In most cases, the tool you used doesn't claim your code: the terms of popular AI builders and coding assistants say the output belongs to you, or assign to you whatever rights they have in it. The harder questions are whether purely machine-written code can be protected by copyright at all, and whether people who worked on it for you (freelancers, agencies, co-founders) have signed it over. Both have practical answers you can act on today.

This is a plain-language overview, not legal advice. Laws differ by country and change, and your situation depends on your contracts. Before you raise money, sell the company or sign a big client, have a lawyer review your specific case.

What do the AI tools' terms say?

Each tool has its own terms, and they get updated, so read the current version for every tool you used. As of October 2026, two examples:

• Lovable's published terms say the customer owns the projects it builds and the AI output generated for it, subject to third-party rights in the underlying models or data. The same terms describe how Lovable may use prompts and generated code to improve its systems, which is a separate question from ownership.
• Cursor's terms of service say its maker, Anysphere, assigns to you its rights, "if any", in the suggestions it generates. They also note that suggestions may be similar or identical to ones given to other users.

That "if any" matters. A tool can only hand over rights it has, and that leads to the copyright question.

Can AI-generated code be copyrighted?

In the United States, copyright protects works of human authorship. The U.S. Copyright Office's report on copyrightability and AI (Part 2, January 2025) concluded that:

• Material generated entirely by AI is not protected.
• Prompts alone, with current tools, generally don't give a person enough control over the result to make them its author.
• Human contributions can be protected: code you write yourself, and your creative selection, arrangement or modification of what the AI produced.
• Using AI as a tool to assist a human author doesn't remove protection for the human parts.

The courts have taken the same line. In Thaler v. Perlmutter, a federal appeals court held in 2025 that the Copyright Act requires a human author, and the Supreme Court declined to take the case in March 2026. Other countries generally follow a similar human-author principle, though the details vary.

For a typical app, this means the parts you or your developers designed, wrote, restructured and reviewed are on firmer ground than large blocks accepted from a prompt without changes. It also means copyright is only one layer of protection. Trade secrets (code you keep private), contracts and simply controlling the repository matter just as much in practice.

Who owns code written by freelancers or an agency?

This is where founders most often get caught out. In the United States and many other countries, code written by an independent contractor generally does not belong to the client automatically. It stays with the person who wrote it unless a written agreement assigns it to you. Employees are usually different, because work they do in their job typically belongs to the employer, but local law and employment contracts decide the details.

What to look for in any development contract:

1. An assignment clause that transfers intellectual property in the work to your company once it is paid for.
2. A list of what they keep, such as their own reusable libraries, with a licence for you to use those parts.
3. Open-source disclosure: a promise to tell you which third-party packages are included and under which licences.
4. Delivery of everything: source code, database schema, configuration and access, not just a running app.

If someone already built part of your app without a contract, it's usually simpler to ask them to sign a short assignment now than to discover the gap during an investor's review.

What about open-source code inside the output?

AI tools learn from public code, and they install packages from public registries. Two things to check:

• Dependencies. Your app's package file lists every library it pulls in. Most use permissive licences such as MIT or Apache 2.0. Copyleft licences such as GPL or AGPL can come with obligations to share source code in some situations, so know where they appear.
• Copied snippets. It is possible for an assistant to reproduce a recognisable chunk of licensed code. Some tools offer filters for this. For anything important, a developer review helps.

How do you make sure the code is actually yours?

Ownership on paper means little if someone else holds the keys. Work through this list:

1. Put the code in a GitHub (or similar) repository owned by your company's account, not a contractor's personal account. Our guide on GitHub sync for Lovable covers the export side.
2. Register the domain, hosting, database project and app store accounts in the company's name, with at least two people who can log in.
3. Keep the contracts and assignments for everyone who contributed, including co-founders.
4. Keep an inventory of third-party services and their terms, so you know what you rely on.
5. Document how the app is built and deployed, so you could hand it to someone else tomorrow. See documenting your app for handoff.

Quick answers

Does Lovable or Bolt own my app? The terms we reviewed for Lovable say you own your projects and output. Check the current terms of every tool you used, as they change.

Can someone copy my AI-generated app legally? Copying your code without permission can still break your terms, trade secret protection or the copyright in human-written parts. The answer depends on facts, so ask a lawyer.

Should I tell investors the app was built with AI? Yes. Investors look at ownership and code quality anyway, and being clear early avoids surprises. See technical due diligence before raising money.

Is this legal advice? No. It's a general overview to help you ask better questions of a lawyer.

Need help getting your code in order?

If your code is scattered across builders, personal accounts and old contractors, we can help consolidate it, document it and get it into shape through ongoing maintenance and support or as part of an MVP build. For the legal side, talk to a lawyer; for the technical side, contact us and a person will reply within one business day.