Can I copyright code that was mostly written by AI (Copilot/Claude)?

Building a SaaS and probably 60% of my code was generated by Claude/Copilot. I heavily edited and integrated it, but the initial generation was AI. Can I claim copyright on the final product? What if someone copies my code?

This is genuinely unsettled law. Here's where we are:

US Copyright Office position (2023): AI-generated content alone cannot be copyrighted — copyright requires human authorship. BUT: if a human "selects, arranges, and edits" AI output with sufficient creativity, the final work may be copyrightable.

Your situation: If you're heavily editing, integrating, and adding your own logic, you likely have copyright in the final work as a whole — the human-contributed elements and the creative arrangement.

Practical advice: Document your contributions. Keep records showing what you prompted, what you modified, what you added. This helps prove human authorship if challenged.

Practical take: no one is checking how you wrote your code. Copyright exists automatically when you create something. The question of AI authorship only matters if (1) you try to register copyright or (2) you're in litigation.

For most startups: your code is protected enough for practical purposes. If someone copies it, you can still send C&D letters. 99% of disputes never go to court where this would be tested.

Worth noting: check the ToS of your AI tools. GitHub Copilot's terms give you ownership of output. Anthropic's terms also let you own Claude outputs. OpenAI same. So the AI companies aren't claiming the copyright — the question is just whether you can.

Also: trade secret protection doesn't require human authorship. Keep your code private and it's protected regardless of how it was created.