German music collection society GEMA notched another major legal victory in its campaign to rein in AI companies’ use of copyrighted material on Friday, winning the case it brought against the generative music platform Suno.
The Munich Regional Court has ruled that Suno is in breach of German and U.S. copyright law by training its AI systems on songs from GEMA’s repertoire and storing and reproducing them.
While specifics of the ruling from the Munich Regional Court German legal proceedings were not made public, its decision requires AI companies to pay to license material “for the systematic use of GEMA’s repertoire and its commercial exploitation,” a press release from GEMA reads. The decision covers that use across both model training and output generation.
“Today, the Chamber made one thing crystal clear: AI models built on stolen intellectual property have no protection under the law. AI service providers must pay for licenses rather than helping themselves to our members’ works free of charge,” a statement from GEMA’s CEO, Dr Tobias Holzmüller, reads. “Today, the court’s verdict has significantly strengthened Europe’s position as a cultural centre.”
The society had accused the Massachusetts-based Suno of infringement over just six songs – “Atemlos,” “Daddy Cool,” “Rasputin,” “Big in Japan,” “Forever Young,” and “Mambo No. 5.” – which GEMA said it had been able to essentially reproduce on Suno through basic prompting, despite the platform’s purpose and business model being to generate “new” sound-based material for users.
