Who owns AI-generated code? Less than your contract assumes.
You hire someone to build your site. You pay the invoice. The contract says “all work is original and assigned to you.” You own it, right?
Maybe not. I’ve reused the same (super-industry-standard) IP clause for years, and this year it stopped matching reality. The build was fast and affordable because the developer leaned on AI agents, reusable skills, and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) setup that wrote most of the code. A clause that assumes a human typed every line, and can therefore sign it all over, no longer describes how the work gets made.
Two things changed under the contract
Ownership got fuzzy. US copyright needs a human author. Code a model writes with little human input isn’t clearly owned by anyone, so “we assign all IP to you” can be handing over rights that don’t exist.
The value moved. When AI compresses a month of work into a week, the code isn’t the asset anymore, the method is. The prompts, the skills, the MCP setup, that’s what makes the speed possible, and it’s what a good builder reuses on every other client. “Assign everything” stops being harmless boilerplate and starts asking someone to give up their livelihood.
The fix: three buckets, not one
The confusion clears the moment you stop treating “the work” as a single thing.
- Deliverables are yours. The site, the component library, the designs, the docs, assigned on full payment. This was always the point.
- The tooling stays with the builder. Their automation and MCP config are the factory, not the product. You don’t need the factory, but you should get a license to whatever’s baked into your deliverables so you can use them without worry.
- Methods built during the project are the real decision. They can be assigned to you or licensed to you. Pick one on purpose, in writing. Silence here is where disputes live.
Two lines that now belong in any dev contract: a date boundary on “pre-existing IP” so it can’t quietly absorb what’s built on your project, and a warranty that any AI or third-party tools don’t drag restrictive licenses into your codebase.
How we handle it at Eldur Studio
We make the choice explicit up front and price it honestly. Two ways to work:
- Build it fast with our methods. You get the finished product quickly and affordably. We keep the methods and tooling that made it fast and reuse them, the way any studio reuses its craft.
- Build the methods for you to keep. We develop the system and hand you ownership, so your team or your next developer can build on it. That’s more work, so it costs more.
Neither is the right answer by default. It depends on whether you’re buying a website or an asset. The trap is paying for one and assuming you got the other, which is exactly what an old work-made-for-hire clause lets happen.
Not sure which one you need? That’s the conversation worth having first. Take a look at the 2x2 matrix before to help you decide
FAQ
Does AI-generated code qualify for copyright?
This is a new topic, changing fast. At the moment, in the U.S. it doesn’t. US copyright needs human authorship, so code produced by a model with little human input may not be protected, which means it can’t be cleanly assigned either. Human review and editing strengthen the claim, but one must prove the uniqueness of the code and the inability of a model to replicate it.
Should I own my developer’s tooling, especially if it’s custom for my project?
Usually not, and you don’t need to. Historically, dev tooling has been. You want the deliverable plus a license to any tooling baked into it. The automation and prompts are how a good builder stays fast, for you and for their next client.
Assign the methods, or license them?
Assign if you plan to build a product on them or want an asset that outlives any one developer. License if you just need to use and extend your own site. Either way, decide it in writing.
While I hold a Law degree and LLM, I’m not a practicing attorney. This is a practitioner’s take, not legal advice. For anything you’re signing, ask a local licensed lawyer.
— Veronica