A Munich court on Tuesday ruled in favour of Germany’s music rights organisation GEMA in a landmark copyright case against U.S.-based artificial intelligence company OpenAI.
The court found that OpenAI used song lyrics without obtaining a proper license and ordered the company to pay damages for infringing on copyrighted material, presiding judge Elke Schwager said.
GEMA had alleged that OpenAI’s ChatGPT reproduced lyrics from copyrighted German songs without permission and that the AI model had been trained on protected works from its repertoire of around 100,000 members, including popular artist Herbert Grönemeyer.
OpenAI countered that GEMA’s claims stemmed from a misunderstanding of how ChatGPT operates.
The ruling could set an important precedent for regulating generative AI in Europe. GEMA has been pushing for a licensing system requiring AI developers to pay for the use of musical works during both training and generation.
The decision is open to appeal. Both OpenAI and GEMA said they would issue statements later on Tuesday.
