Abstract
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 respond to these questions, the views of users can offer relevant perspectives. In this article, 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 were rapidly evolving; and (3) an analysis of developers’ perspectives, 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 other findings, providing organizations and policymakers with valuable insights into how the technology is being used and the concerns that stakeholders believe warrant attention.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2026
Publication Information
35 ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 1-39 (2026)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Repository Citation
Stalnaker, Trevor; Wintersgill, Nathan; Chaparro, Oscar; Heymann, Laura A.; Di Penta, Massimiliano; German, Daniel M.; and Poshyvanyk, Denys, "Developer Perspectives on Licensing and Copyright Issues Arising from Generative AI for Software Development" (2026). Faculty Publications. 2430.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/2430