Developer Perspectives on Licensing and Copyright Issues Arising from Generative AI for Software Development
This study addresses legal and regulatory challenges for developers and policymakers in the evolving field of generative AI for coding.
The paper surveyed 574 developers to understand their perspectives on licensing and copyright issues related to generative AI in software development, revealing insights such as benefits from AI tools, varied opinions on ownership, and concerns about data leakage.
Despite the utility that Generative AI (GenAI) tools provide for tasks such as writing code, the use of these tools raises important legal questions and potential risks, particularly those associated with copyright law. As lawmakers and regulators engage with those questions, the views of users can provide relevant perspectives. In this paper, we provide: (1) a survey of 574 developers on the licensing and copyright aspects of GenAI for coding, as well as follow-up interviews; (2) a snapshot of developers' views at a time when GenAI and perceptions of it are rapidly evolving; and (3) an analysis of developers' views, yielding insights and recommendations that can inform future regulatory decisions in this evolving field. Our results show the benefits developers derive from GenAI, how they view the use of AI-generated code as similar to using other existing code, the varied opinions they have on who should own or be compensated for such code, that they are concerned about data leakage via GenAI, and much more, providing organizations and policymakers with valuable insights into how the technology is being used and what concerns stakeholders would like to see addressed.