US EditionOpenAI used song lyrics in violation of copyright laws, German court says
- On Tuesday, November 11, 2025, the Munich Regional Court ruled OpenAI infringed German authors' rights by using song lyrics without a licence, and Judge Elke Schwager ordered damages.
- GEMA filed its lawsuit in November 2024 after alleging ChatGPT memorised and reproduced lyrics from nine German songs, representing more than 100,000 composers and over two million copyright owners globally.
- The court found the lyrics were reproducibly contained in GPT 4 and 4o models, with Judge Elke Schwager astonished by OpenAI's disregard for clear law, saying `We have highly intelligent defendants who have managed to create the most modern of technologies`.
- The outcome could set a Europe-wide precedent for AI training on copyrighted works, with GEMA seeking a licensing framework and OpenAI facing payments of hundreds of thousands of euros.
- OpenAI said it disagrees with the ruling and is considering next steps, including appeal options, while similar legal fights unfold in New Delhi and against SunoAI, following Anthropic's loss earlier this year.
140 Articles
140 Articles
A German court has ordered OpenAI to pay damages for violating the copyrights of German artists. This is the first time that a...
The actors in the German music industry won a first judicial victory against OpenAI on Tuesday when a court found that the U.S. artificial intelligence giant violated the copyright of the lyrics of the songs.
OpenAI lost its case against the Gema, the German Sacem, before the Munich court. The judges considered that the chatbot also illuminated lyrics of songs.
According to the Landgericht München I, the use of lyrics by the US-American AI company OpenAI violates copyright law. The judges agreed with the collecting society Gema, which had sued for nine songs, including "men" by Herbert Grönemeyer and "Über den Wolken" by Reinhard Mey.
The Munich court has condemned OpenAI for the use of copyrighted song lyrics in the training of its language model ChatGPT, with a decision that...
The company behind ChatGPT violates copyright by writing song lyrics while people chat with the program. This is the first major European ruling the music industry has filed against AI companies.
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