AI-Generated Content and Intellectual Property Protection in Canada

In an interview with Canadian Lawyer, Jim Lepore discussed Anthropic’s inadvertent disclosure of the source code for Claude Code, which raised questions about whether copyright exists at all in AI-generated software and who may qualify as an author under the Copyright Act. Jim explained that companies can strengthen their claim to authorship by using and documenting an iterative development process, putting them in a stronger position if a dispute over misappropriated code ends up in court.