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Does copyright protection apply to vibe coded programs?

Fans of the iconic Australian movie The Castle will be familiar with the phrase "it's the vibe".

Well the vibe is currently creating massive change within the ranks of programmers across the face of the globe.

This time it has nothing to do with Marbo or the Australian constitution, it's all about a new trend towards the use of AI coding agents to hugely streamline the creation of new software and to maintain existing codebases.

Vibe coding has already devalued the humble programmer and, according to some reports, markedly reduced the number vacancies in what was previously an area of high demand.

So what does the future hold for software developers and programmers, in an era when even the office tea-lady can whip up a complex system with a few itterations of text prompts and how can the code generated be protected from piracy?

Well the death of the programmer has, to use the words of Mark Twain, been "greatly exagerated".

Although I increasingly see non-programmers boasting that they've created some fantastic new app or program using one of the many vibe-coding platforms, the reality is that any non-trivial system is still going to require some smarts and some conventional programming resources to be successful.

As I reported a few months ago, users of the vibe-coding tool Cursor are still griping in the forums about issues, problems, failures and delivery of service. Similar concerns are being raised by users of other systems elsewhere on the Net.

The reality is that vibe coding is a partial solution to the problem of creating good, reliable, robust and secure code. At this point in time it still requires someone with programming knowledge to ensure that a vibe-coded system works properly and doesn't have glaring security holes built into it.

One of the good things about vibe coding is that it does allow the use of more varied and interesting languages, without the huge overhead of retraining humans.

Most programmers are likely proficient in just one or two languages -- these days that's likely to be something like python and Java. In the past, if challenged to write an application or a module using a different language such as Rust or C++ an IT department would have probably had to hire a new programmer with the necessary skills to do the work. These days however, it would not be impossible to build most of the app using vibe coding and perhaps either use the remaining work as part of the learning process to develop skills in-house or simply contract out the final bit of the job.

One thing is for sure: if you are still a programmer in paid employment then you really do need to get familiar with vibe coding and add "prompt engineering" to your CV. Future employers will likely be very much aware of the gains that are to be had by the use of vibe coding and they'll give a high priority to employing those with the requisite skills to take advantage of it.

Like everything however, there are likely to be negative impacts from the transition to vibe coding. Just as AI has created a tsunami of really bad videos on YouTube, vibe coding could result in a hike in the amount of really poor aps and software offerings on the market. Those who can only vibe code and have no real programming knowledge may well end up spitting out software with horrific security flaws or even unknowingly delivering malware that is just waiting to be triggered.

Perhaps software should now include a warning where appropriate that clearly indicates that some or all of the code has been created by AI.

Another point to ponder is the copyright status of vibe-coded software.

Right now the courts have ruled that other works normally protected by copyright (such as music, video, pictures etc) are not eligible for that protection if they have been created by AI. Does this mean that the software you vibe code can then be copied, distributed and used by anyone who wants to and that you have no right to stop them?

That's going to be a very interesting question that will likely need answering very soon.

Carpe Diem folks!

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