Who owns the copyright in code generated by Artificial Intelligence in Australia?

Under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), authorship fundamentally requires a human creator. The High Court in IceTV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd (2009) 239 CLR 458 confirmed that originality requires independent intellectual effort, and the Full Federal Court in Commissioner of Patents v Thaler confirmed AI cannot be an inventor. Code generated entirely by AI without sufficient human direction cannot be copyrighted in Australia. Developers must heavily architect and modify AI outputs to ensure the codebase remains a protectable asset.

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