German Court Rules OpenAI Violated Copyright Law in Landmark European AI Decision

Court rules that OpenAI violated German copyright law; ordered it to pay damages | TechCrunch

A German court ruled that OpenAI's ChatGPT violated the nation's copyright laws by training its language models on licensed musical work without permission, multiple news outlets, including The Guardian reported. The decision came from a lawsuit that GEMA, the society that handles music rights in Germany, filed last November against OpenAI. The company was ordered to pay an undisclosed amount of damages to GEMA, but said it disagreed with the ruling and is "considering next steps." GEMA, meanwhile, regarded this as the "first landmark AI ruling in Europe." "Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law," GEMA chief executive Tobias Holzmüller said, as The Guardian reported. "Today, we have successfully defended the livelihoods of music creators."

OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

MUNICH, Nov 11 (Reuters) - A German court on Tuesday sided with the country's music rights society GEMA in a closely watched copyright case against U.S.-based artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. The court in Munich ruled that OpenAI could not use song lyrics without a license and presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered the firm to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material. GEMA had argued OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT reproduces lyrics from copyrighted German songs without authorisation, and that its AI was trained on protected content from the repertoire of its roughly 100,000 members, who include best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer. OpenAI responded by saying that GEMA's arguments reflected a misunderstanding of how ChatGPT works. The case could set a precedent for how generative AI systems are regulated in Europe. GEMA is seeking the establishment of a licensing framework that would require AI developers to pay for the use of musical works in both training and output. The decision can be appealed. OpenAI and GEMA said they would issue statements on the verdict later on Tuesday. Reporting by Joern Poltz, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Madeline Chambers Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

OpenAI violated copyright law, German court rules

ChatGPT creator OpenAI violated Germany's national copyright laws, according to a court in Munich. GEMA, a German music rights group, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last November claiming that the AI company illegally trained its AI models on popular music without consent from the rights holders. This week a German court ruled in favor of GEMA and ordered OpenAI to pay an undisclosed sum in damages. "We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps," OpenAI said in a statement, signaling that they may appeal the ruling. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day." Regardless of OpenAI's statement, it is clear that the AI company along with many of its competitors, have an ongoing issue related to AI training and copyright infringement. The New York Times, The Intercept, and Mashable's parent company Ziff Davis are all currently suing OpenAI, for example, alleging that the ChatGPT creator trained its AI models on their respective content without permission. Anthropic, the company behind AI chatbot Claude, agreed to pay a massive $1.5 billion settlement in September as the result of a class action lawsuit filed by authors who allege that its AI models were trained on pirated books. GEMA hailed its win as "the first landmark AI ruling in Europe." "The internet is not a self-service store and human creative achievements are not free templates," said GEMA chief executive Tobias Holzmüller in a statement. "Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law. Today, we have successfully defended the livelihoods of music creators."

ChatGPT violated copyright law by 'learning' from song lyrics, German court rules

OpenAI ordered to pay undisclosed damages for training its language models on artists' work without permission A court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by using hits from top-selling musicians to train its language models in what creative industry advocates described as a landmark European ruling. The Munich regional court sided in favour of Germany's music rights society GEMA, which said ChatGPT had harvested protected lyrics by popular artists to "learn" from them. The collecting society GEMA, which manages the rights of composers, lyricists and music publishers and has approximately 100,000 members, filed the case against OpenAI in November 2024. The lawsuit was seen as a key European test case in a campaign to stop AI scraping of creative output. OpenAI can appeal against the decision. ChatGPT allows users to ask questions and type commands into a chatbot, which responds with text that resembles human language patterns. The model underlying ChatGPT is trained on widely available data. The case revolved around nine of the most recognisable German hits of recent decades, which were used by ChatGPT to hone its language capabilities. They included Herbert Grönemeyer's 1984 synth-pop sendup of masculinity, Männer (Men), and Helene Fischer's Atemlos Durch die Nacht (Breathless Through the Night), which was the unofficial anthem of the German side during the 2014 football World Cup. The presiding judge ordered OpenAI to pay undisclosed damages for using copyrighted material without permission. The GEMA legal adviser Kai Welp said the organisation now hoped to negotiate with OpenAI on how rights holders could be compensated. The San Francisco-based company, whose founders include Sam Altman and Elon Musk, had said its language learning models absorbed entire training sets of data rather than storing or copying specific songs, the Munich court said. Because its output is generated by users of the chatbot via their prompts, OpenAI said, they were the ones who should be held legally liable for it - an argument rejected by the court. GEMA welcomed the decision as "the first landmark AI ruling in Europe", saying it could have implications for other types of creative output. Its chief executive, Tobias Holzmüller, said the decision proved "the internet is not a self-service store and human creative achievements are not free templates". "Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law. Today, we have successfully defended the livelihoods of music creators." The Berlin law firm Raue, which represented GEMA, said in a statement that the court's decision "sets an important precedent for the protection of creative works and sends a clear signal to the global tech industry" while creating "legal certainty for creators, music publishers and platforms across Europe". The ruling "is likely to have an impact far beyond Germany as a precedent", it said. The German Journalists' Association also hailed the ruling as "a milestone victory for copyright law". OpenAI said in a statement it would weigh an appeal. "We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps," it said. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day." It added: "We respect the rights of creators and content owners and are having productive conversations with many organisations around the world, so that they can also benefit from the opportunities of this technology." OpenAI has faced litigation in the US from authors and media groups claiming ChatGPT has been trained on their work without permission.

ChatGPT's Use of Song Lyrics Violates Copyright, Munich Court Finds - Decrypt

The decision, not yet final, could set a major European precedent on AI training data. Germany's national music rights organization secured a partial but decisive win against OpenAI after a Munich court ruled that ChatGPT's underlying models unlawfully reproduced copyrighted German song lyrics. The ruling orders OpenAI to cease reproduction, disclose relevant training details, and compensate rights holders. It is not yet final, and OpenAI may appeal. If upheld, the decision could reshape how AI companies source and license creative material in Europe, as regulators weigh broader obligations for model transparency and training-data provenance. The case marks the first time a European court has found that a large language model violated copyright by memorizing protected works. In its decision, the 42nd Civil Chamber of the Munich I Regional Court said that GPT-4 and GPT-4o contained "reproducible" lyrics from nine well-known songs, including Kristina Bach's "Atemlos" and Rolf Zuckowski's "Wie schön, dass du geboren bist." The court held that such memorization constitutes a "fixation" of the original works in the model's parameters, satisfying the legal definition of reproduction under Article 2 of the EU InfoSoc Directive and Germany's Copyright Act. "At least in individual cases, when prompted accordingly, the model produces an output whose content is at least partially identical to content from the earlier training dataset," a translated copy of the written judgement provided by the Munich court to Decrypt reads. The model "generates a sequence of tokens that appears statistically plausible because, for example, it was contained in the training process in a particularly stable or frequently recurring form," the court wrote, adding that because this "token sequence appeared on a large number of publicly accessible websites" it meant that it was "included in the training dataset more than once." In the pleadings, GEMA argued that the model's output lyrics were almost verbatim when prompted, proving that OpenAI's systems had retained and reproduced the works. OpenAI countered that its models do not store training data directly and that any output results from user prompts, not from deliberate copying. The company also invoked text-and-data-mining exceptions, which allow temporary reproductions for analytical use. "We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps," a spokesperson for OpenAI told Decrypt. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses, and developers in Germany that use our technology every day." OpenAI claims systems like theirs do not store or contain training data and thus do not hold copies of lyrics or other texts. Instead, these models learn patterns and generate new outputs based on patterns, OpenAI said. The company told Decrypt that treating a model as if it contains stored works reflects a misunderstanding of how the technology works. The court rejected those defenses, ruling that full reproductions embedded in a model's structure fall outside the scope of data-mining exemptions. "Training the models is not to be regarded as a usual and expected form of use that the rights holder must anticipate," the court wrote. "This applies all the more when -- as in the present case -- the works are reproduced in the model, something that even the defendants themselves consider undesirable and against which countermeasures are taken."

German court rules against OpenAI in copyright case

Munich (Germany) (AFP) - A German court ruled Tuesday that OpenAI has infringed copyright law by using song lyrics to feed its chat models in a case that could have wide implications for European artists. The Munich court found that the maker of ChatGPT was not entitled to use song lyrics to train its artificial intelligence without licences, and that the artists who wrote them are entitled to compensation. "Both the memorisation in the language models and the reproduction of the song lyrics in the chatbot's outputs constitute infringements of copyright law," the court ruled. The case was filed in November 2024 by German music rights body GEMA on behalf of the artists behind nine German songs. GEMA, which represents more than 100,000 composers, songwriters and publishers, accused OpenAI of reproducing protected song lyrics without having purchased licences or paid the creators. San Francisco-based OpenAI argued it had not broken the law because its language models do not store or copy specific data but rather reflect in their settings what they have learnt, according to the court. With regard to the AI chatbot, it is users who are the producers of its output and are responsible for it, OpenAI argued. But the court on Tuesday ruled that the plaintiffs were entitled to compensation "both on the basis of the reproduction of the texts in the language models and their reproduction in the outputs". In a statement on Tuesday, OpenAI said that "we disagree" with the ruling and that the company was "considering next steps". "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day," it said. "We respect the rights of creators and content owners and are having productive conversations with many organisations around the world, so that they can also benefit from the opportunities of this technology." 'Milestone victory' OpenAI has faced several court cases in the United States, with media groups and authors among those claiming that the company's ChatGPT chatbot has been trained on their work without permission. But GEMA's challenge is the first major case of its kind in Europe, the music rights group said. Law firm Raue, which represented GEMA in the case, said the ruling "sets an important precedent for the protection of creative works and sends a clear signal to the global tech industry". The ruling has provided "legal certainty for creative artists, music publishers and platforms throughout Europe and is likely to have an impact far beyond Germany", it said in a statement. Kai Welp, the head of GEMA's legal department, said it was "crucial for authors receive remuneration for the commercial exploitation of their works so that they can make a living". "It is to be hoped that today's decision will increase the willingness of AI companies to negotiate and that, in this way, fair remuneration for our members can be agreed," Welp said. The verdict could also have implications for other types of creative content, according to GEMA. The German Journalists' Association also welcomed the ruling, hailing it as "a milestone victory for copyright law".

OpenAI cannot use song lyrics without paying, German court rules

A Munich court ordered OpenAI to pay damages to Germany's largest music rights organisation for using copyrighted lyrics in AI models such as ChatGPT. OpenAI must pay a licensing fee to use copyrighted song lyrics in its artificial intelligence (AI) models, including ChatGPT, a German court ruled in a landmark case on Tuesday. Presiding judge Elke Schwager ruled in favour of the Society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights (GEMA), Germany's largest music rights collecting organisation, which lodged a complaint last year against the US-based OpenAI over its use of copyrighted lyrics. The judge ordered OpenAI to compensate GEMA for all damages, including unpaid royalties and legal fees, plus interest. OpenAI could be forced to pay the group hundreds of thousands of euros if the ruling holds. An OpenAI spokesperson told Euronews Next in an email that the company disagreed with the ruling and is considering its next steps. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses, and developers in Germany that use our technology everyday," the spokesperson said. "We respect the rights of creators and content owners and are having productive conversations with many organisations around the world, so that they can also benefit from the opportunities of this technology," the spokesperson added. OpenAI can still appeal the decision. The case concerns the lyrics of nine well-known German songwriters represented by GEMA, including Kristina Bach and Rolf Zuckowski. GEMA alleges that OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot memorised these lyrics in its datasets and reproduced "large parts" of these songs "verbatim" when prompted. OpenAI argued that its language models do not store or copy specific training data, but rather learn patterns and generate new outputs based on those patterns. The company put the responsibility on individual chatbot users, saying the lyrical outputs could not be generated without user input - an argument the court rejected. "The defendants, not the users, are responsible for this," the court said in a statement. "The language models operated by the defendants significantly influenced the outputs; the specific content of the outputs is generated by the language models". The case is the first of its scale in Europe. It could set a precedent for how generative AI systems are regulated in ⁠the European Union - especially when it comes to art. "For the first time, today's ruling clarifies key legal questions concerning the way new technology interacts with European copyright law," GEMA's General Counsel Kai Welp said in a statement shared with Euronews Next. "The verdict represents a milestone on the way to obtaining fair remuneration for authors and creators throughout Europe," Welp added. GEMA is one of the largest societies for musical creators in the world, representing more than 95,000 composers, songwriters, and publishers in Germany, and over two million copyright owners globally. The group has offered an AI licensing model since 2024, designed to let technology companies train on its catalogue legally while ensuring artists are paid fairly. GEMA has filed a parallel lawsuit against US-based AI music generator SunoAI, also accusing the company of training on its catalogue. That case is expected to be heard early next year.

OpenAI loses music copyright battle in German court

The judgement is not final and OpenAI has said that it is considering next steps. OpenAI has violated German copyright laws by reproducing song lyrics by popular artists, the Munich Regional Court has ruled today (11 November). GEMA, a German management organisation representing more than 100,000 composers, songwriters and publishers filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in 2024. The case references nine songs by popular German artists, and GEMA claims that its lyrics were memorised by the large language models (LLM) and reproduced when simple prompts were put into the chatbot. "Both the memorisation in the language models and the reproduction of the lyrics in the outputs of the chatbot would interfere with the copyright exploitation rights," a translated press release put out by the Regional Court read. OpenAI claimed that its LLMs did not store or copy specific training data. It said that since the chatbot's outputs are dependent on prompts put in by users, it is not their responsibility, but rather the users', who generate reproduced outputs. The court, however, found that the disputed lyrics are "reproducibly" contained in OpenAI's GPT 4 and 4o models, after being 'memorised' for training. It added that the defendants also unjustifiably duplicated the lyrics and made them publicly available by allowing them to be outputted by chatbot. "The defendants and not the users are responsible for this. The outputs were generated by simple prompts," the court said. Although, the judgement is not final and can be appealed. SiliconRepublic.com has reached out to OpenAI for further comments. "The internet is not a self-service store, and human creative achievements are not free templates," said GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmueller, in a statement to the press. An OpenAI spokesperson, however, told press that the company is considering next steps. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day." GEMA has also filed a similar lawsuit this year against Suno AI, an AI music generator. The ruling comes as copyright laws worldwide have come to the foray in the generative AI (genAI) age where LLMs commonly consume copyrighted material to train and hone its results. Just last week, Getty lost a major lawsuit in the UK against Stability AI after the country's High Court ruled that the AI company's stable diffusion model weights did not contain copies of Getty's copyrighted works. And earlier this year, a US court sided with AI giant Anthropic, denying a motion filed by mega music publishers Universal Music Group, Concord and Capitol CMG to stop the start-up from using their song lyrics to train its AI models. While the complaint referenced 500 songs, the plaintiffs said that the proposed injunction would extend to all of their works. Anthropic pushed back, claiming that excluding an undefined number of material would make training its models "virtually impossible". Also earlier this year, Anthropic lost a major copyright battle against book publishers over illegally pirating their work to train its models. Although the company wound up having to pay $1.5bn to settle the case, the court ultimately said that the AI giant is protected under fair use when it came to using copyrighted works to train Claude. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

German court rules ChatGPT violated copyright over song lyrics

The court found that OpenAI used lyrics without permission rejecting the companys argument that models do not store or copy individual works. A regional court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI's ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by training its language models on protected song lyrics without permission, The Guardian reports. The ruling, described by creative industry advocates as a landmark European decision, sided with Germany's music rights society, GEMA, which filed the case in November 2024. The lawsuit was centered on nine popular German hit songs, including Herbert Grönemeyer's "Männer" and Helene Fischer's "Atemlos Durch die Nacht." GEMA, which represents approximately 100,000 composers, lyricists, and music publishers, argued that OpenAI had harvested these protected lyrics for its AI to "learn" from. The court ordered OpenAI to pay undisclosed damages. During the case, OpenAI argued that its models absorb entire training sets rather than storing or copying specific songs. The company also contended that its users, not the company itself, should be held legally liable for the output generated by their prompts. The court rejected this argument. NYT lawsuit forces OpenAI to keep 20M ChatGPT chats GEMA welcomed the decision as "the first landmark AI ruling in Europe." Its chief executive, Tobias Holzmüller, stated, "Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law." The German Journalists' Association also hailed the ruling as "a milestone victory for copyright law." OpenAI, which has faced similar copyright litigation in the U.S., said in a statement that it "disagrees with the ruling and are considering next steps." The company noted the decision was for a "limited set of lyrics" and "does not impact the millions of people... in Germany that use our technology every day."

OpenAI used song lyrics in violation of copyright laws, German court says - The Economic Times

The regional court in Munich found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, including Groenemeyer's hits "Maenner" and "Bochum".OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by reproducing lyrics from songs by best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer and others, a court ruled on Tuesday, in a closely watched case against the U.S. firm over its use of lyrics to train its language models. The regional court in Munich found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, including Groenemeyer's hits "Maenner" and "Bochum". The case was brought by German music rights society GEMA, whose members include composers, lyricists and publishers, in another sign of artists around the world fighting back against data scraping by AI. Presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered OpenAI to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material, without disclosing a figure. GEMA legal advisor Kai Welp said GEMA hoped discussions could now take place with OpenAI on how copyright holders can be remunerated. Copyright infringed OpenAI had argued that its language models did not store or copy specific training data but, rather, reflected what they had learned based on the entire training data set. Since the output would only be generated as a result of user inputs known as prompts, it was not the defendants, but the respective user who would be liable for it, OpenAI had argued. However, the court found that both the memorisation in the language models and the reproduction of the song lyrics in the chatbot's outputs constitute infringements of copyright exploitation rights, according to a statement on the ruling. Potential precedent The outcome of the case could set a precedent in Europe for how AI companies use copyrighted materials. "The internet is not a self-service store, and human creative achievements are not free templates," said GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmueller. "Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law." The decision can be appealed. "We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps," a spokesperson for OpenAI said. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day." Earlier this year, leading Bollywood music labels asked a New Delhi court to join a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI over alleged unauthorised use of sound recordings to train AI models, underscoring global concerns about AI and music rights.

German court rules OpenAI violated copyright laws by using song lyrics

A regional court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI's ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by reproducing lyrics from songs by Herbert Groenemeyer and other artists. As per Reuters, the court found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, including hits like "Maenner" and "Bochum." The case was brought by German music rights society GEMA, representing composers, lyricists, and publishers. The court ordered OpenAI to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material, though the exact amount was not disclosed. GEMA also hopes this ruling will open discussions on how copyright holders can be fairly compensated. Meanwhile, OpenAI had argued that its language models do not store or copy specific data but generate outputs based on patterns learned from large datasets. However, the court concluded that both memorization in AI models and reproduction of song lyrics constitute copyright infringements. GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmueller emphasizes that creative works are not free templates, highlighting the ruling as a precedent for AI companies in Europe. OpenAI states it disagrees with the decision and is considering an appeal, noting the case involves a limited set of lyrics and does not affect the millions of users in Germany. Who do you think is right in this case?

ChatGpt-maker OpenAI faces setback from German court. Will there be regulations in AI chatbot training, output?

German music rights socity had argued OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT reproduces lyrics from copyrighted German songs without authorisation. A German court on Tuesday sided with the country's music rights society GEMA in a closely watched copyright case against U.S.-based artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. The court in Munich ruled that OpenAI could not use song lyrics without a license and presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered the firm to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material. GEMA had argued OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT reproduces lyrics from copyrighted German songs without authorisation, and that its AI was trained on protected content from the repertoire of its roughly 100,000 members, who include best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer. OpenAI responded by saying that GEMA's arguments reflected a misunderstanding of how ChatGPT works. The case could set a precedent for how generative AI systems are regulated in Europe. GEMA is seeking the establishment of a licensing framework that would require AI developers to pay for the use of musical works in both training and output. The decision can be appealed. OpenAI and GEMA said they would issue statements on the verdict later on Tuesday. Q1. Which company made ChatGpt? A1. OpenAI made ChatGpt. Q2. What is full form of AI? A2. The full form of AI is Artificial Intelligence. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

OpenAI used song lyrics in violation of copyright laws, German court says - The Korea Times

MUNICH -- OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by reproducing lyrics from songs by best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer and others, a court ruled on Tuesday, in a closely watched case against the U.S. firm over its use of lyrics to train its language models. The regional court in Munich found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, including Groenemeyer's hits "Maenner" and "Bochum." The case was brought by German music rights society GEMA, whose members include composers, lyricists and publishers, in another sign of artists around the world fighting back against data scraping by AI. Presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered OpenAI to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material, without disclosing a figure. GEMA legal advisor Kai Welp said GEMA hoped discussions could now take place with OpenAI on how copyright holders can be remunerated. Copyright infringed OpenAI had argued that its language models did not store or copy specific training data but, rather, reflected what they had learned based on the entire training data set. Since the output would only be generated as a result of user inputs known as prompts, it was not the defendants, but the respective user who would be liable for it, OpenAI had argued. However, the court found that both the memorization in the language models and the reproduction of the song lyrics in the chatbot's outputs constitute infringements of copyright exploitation rights, according to a statement on the ruling. Potential precedent The outcome of the case could set a precedent in Europe for how AI companies use copyrighted materials. "The internet is not a self-service store, and human creative achievements are not free templates," said GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmueller. "Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law." The decision can be appealed. "We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps," a spokesperson for OpenAI said. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day." Earlier this year, leading Bollywood music labels asked a New Delhi court to join a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI over alleged unauthorized use of sound recordings to train AI models, underscoring global concerns about AI and music rights.

OpenAI Held Liable for ChatGPT Memorising Copyrighted Content

MediaNama's Take: Who should be held liable when an AI chatbot like ChatGPT of OpenAI spews out a copyright-infringing output based on a specific prompt? The person who entered the prompt? Or, the machine that generated the infringed answer or output? This perpetual question still lacks a definitive answer, as AI-specific policies and laws are being developed and understood worldwide. In one such legal process, a regional court in Germany made an important observation regarding how and whether AI companies should be held liable for generating copyright-infringing material by ruling that the content stored in the "memory" of LLMs can also potentially fall under the same ambit as their foundational databases, especially in cases of copyright infringement. This ambiguity surrounding AI liability needs to be addressed, as the barriers to reproducing high-quality content, including copyrighted content, continue to decrease as LLMs become even more powerful. To illustrate the scale of AI-driven copyright and intellectual property violations, we can refer to instances that have occurred since the launch of OpenAI's latest Sora model. For reference, the X account, @seemscopied has been documenting the copyright and intellectual property infringed content generated by the AI models. On November 11, Judge Dr Elke Schwager found OpenAI guilty of negligence for reproducing the copyrighted lyrics of German songs. One interesting observation made by the court is that, in the absence of a license to use the copyrighted content, not only the reproduction of the content but also its memorisation will fall under the scope of copyright infringement. For some contextual reference, in February 2024, OpenAI introduced a feature for ChatGPT that enables it to recall conversations with users. Later in May, the AI company expanded this feature to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, making it now available to all customers, including those with free accounts. "As you chat with ChatGPT, you can ask it to remember something specific or let it pick up details itself. ChatGPT's memory will get better the more you use it, and you'll start to notice the improvements over time," claimed the AI company in its blogpost. In November 2024, the German music rights collecting society Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (GEMA) filed a copyright infringement complaint against OpenAI for reproducing and training AI models based on song lyrics. It is important to note that this current lawsuit is only against the lyrics OpenAI has reproduced and not for the musical compositions of those songs, which are also equally eligible for copyright protection and technically feasible for the AI companies to reproduce as well. This lawsuit is significant because it may have EU-wide implications, as Germany adheres to the copyright laws established by the European Union (EU). Additionally, unlike various US-based lawsuits, this particular lawsuit is not aimed at obtaining monetary compensation for the infringements but rather at establishing a legal framework that favours opt-out mechanisms and defines fair use exceptions, especially when the law deems derivative content as non-infringement of the copyright holder's rights. When the music rights society, GEMA, pointed out the 30 instances where copyrights were infringed, the court, in its support, reportedly noted that even the 15-word reproduction of the lyrics was classified as an infringement. Countering such exact reproductions, OpenAI brought up the "rare bug" argument while explaining the deterministic nature of LLMs' responses, as the answers are usually generated from the "statistical correlations between tokens". It means that AI systems make their decisions based on their probabilistic nature, which can make them vulnerable to randomness and lead to different outcomes each time, even if the same prompt is fed into the same AI model. However, the examples of reproduced material that GEMA presented to the court were sufficient to persuade it that an injunction was justified. The Court also noted that just because the copyrighted lyrics are freely available elsewhere, the unlicensed memorisation and reproduction without permission still fall under the infringement. Concerning the probabilistic functioning of LLMs as a reason for evading the liability for the AI-generated responses and materials, during the 2024 Governing the AI Ecosystem discussion, Nikhil Pahwa, MediaNama's Founder and Editor, wondered:

German court rules against OpenAI in copyright case

MUNICH, Germany -- A German court ruled Tuesday that OpenAI has infringed copyright law by using song lyrics to feed its chat models in a case that could have wide implications for European artists. The Munich court found that the maker of ChatGPT was not entitled to use song lyrics to train its artificial intelligence without licences, and that the artists who wrote them are entitled to compensation. "Both the memorization in the language models and the reproduction of the song lyrics in the chatbot's outputs constitute infringements of copyright law," the court ruled. The case was filed in November 2024 by German music rights body GEMA on behalf of the artists behind nine German songs. GEMA, which represents more than 100,000 composers, songwriters and publishers, accused OpenAI of reproducing protected song lyrics without having purchased licences or paid the creators. San Francisco-based OpenAI argued it had not broken the law because its language models do not store or copy specific data but rather reflect in their settings what they have learnt, according to the court. With regard to the AI chatbot, it is users who are the producers of its output and are responsible for it, OpenAI argued. But the court on Tuesday ruled that the plaintiffs were entitled to compensation "both on the basis of the reproduction of the texts in the language models and their reproduction in the outputs." In a statement on Tuesday, OpenAI said that "we disagree" with the ruling and that the company was "considering next steps." "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day," it said. "We respect the rights of creators and content owners and are having productive conversations with many organizations around the world, so that they can also benefit from the opportunities of this technology." 'Milestone victory' OpenAI has faced several court cases in the United States, with media groups and authors among those claiming that the company's ChatGPT chatbot has been trained on their work without permission. But GEMA's challenge is the first major case of its kind in Europe, the music rights group said. Law firm Raue, which represented GEMA in the case, said the ruling "sets an important precedent for the protection of creative works and sends a clear signal to the global tech industry." The ruling has provided "legal certainty for creative artists, music publishers and platforms throughout Europe and is likely to have an impact far beyond Germany", it said in a statement. Kai Welp, the head of GEMA's legal department, said it was "crucial for authors receive remuneration for the commercial exploitation of their works so that they can make a living." "It is to be hoped that today's decision will increase the willingness of AI companies to negotiate and that, in this way, fair remuneration for our members can be agreed," Welp said. The verdict could also have implications for other types of creative content, according to GEMA. The German Journalists' Association also welcomed the ruling, hailing it as "a milestone victory for copyright law."

OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

MUNICH (Reuters) -A German court on Tuesday sided with the country's music rights society GEMA in a closely watched copyright case against U.S.-based artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. The court in Munich ruled that OpenAI could not use song lyrics without a license and presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered the firm to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material. GEMA had argued OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT reproduces lyrics from copyrighted German songs without authorisation, and that its AI was trained on protected content from the repertoire of its roughly 100,000 members, who include best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer. OpenAI responded by saying that GEMA's arguments reflected a misunderstanding of how ChatGPT works. The case could set a precedent for how generative AI systems are regulated in Europe. GEMA is seeking the establishment of a licensing framework that would require AI developers to pay for the use of musical works in both training and output. The decision can be appealed. OpenAI and GEMA said they would issue statements on the verdict later on Tuesday. (Reporting by Joern Poltz, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Madeline Chambers)

AI vs. artists: What Germany's copyright ruling against OpenAI means for creativity and tech

Verdict pressures tech giants to license content for AI models A German court has delivered a ruling that could reshape the foundations of how AI learns and creates. The Munich Regional Court found OpenAI guilty of using copyrighted song lyrics without a licence, siding with GEMA, the country's music rights organisation. It's the first major European decision to hold an AI company directly accountable for its training data and it may mark the beginning of a global reckoning for how artificial intelligence treats human creativity. Also read: AMD vs NVIDIA GPUs: AI, efficiency, and gaming, who wins? The court ruled that ChatGPT had reproduced protected German lyrics, violating copyright law even if the model didn't explicitly "store" them. For OpenAI, which argued that its systems merely generate text through statistical patterns rather than memorisation, this distinction didn't matter. What mattered was that the model could reproduce creative material it wasn't licensed to use. The verdict sets a precedent. It establishes that AI developers can't hide behind the technical opacity of their systems. Whether content is copied, referenced, or statistically inferred, creators still have rights and courts are beginning to enforce them. Generative AI depends on massive datasets scraped from public sources. Until now, that practice has thrived in a grey area, with companies claiming that training on publicly available data doesn't infringe on copyright. Germany just turned that assumption into a legal liability. For rights holders, the decision validates years of frustration over how their work is consumed by AI systems that can mimic their style or quote their lyrics without permission. For developers, it introduces a new level of risk - not just financial, but technical. The more models rely on unverified data, the greater the exposure. This ruling also forces a difficult conversation about transparency. Companies like OpenAI have avoided disclosing specific training materials, citing competitive and privacy reasons. But without that transparency, there's no clear way to prove compliance. Also read: Private AI Compute explained: How Google plans to make powerful AI private Regulators and rights groups in Europe are already calling for datasets to be documented and licensed, much like how the music industry evolved after the rise of streaming. If such frameworks take hold, the economics of AI could change. Training costs would rise, but so would accountability. Developers might need to negotiate licences with rights organisations or pay collective fees for access to creative material. The comparison to Spotify isn't far off. AI companies may soon have to pay to "train" on creative content the same way streaming platforms pay to "play" it. But applying that principle to text, art, or datasets scraped from billions of websites is far more complex. Restricting training data could slow the pace of AI development, but it could also push the industry toward higher-quality, ethically sourced datasets. Instead of scraping everything, companies may start to curate, choosing quality over volume to avoid legal and reputational damage. The Munich decision doesn't exist in isolation. Lawsuits in the US, UK, and Japan are raising the same question: can a machine "learn" from human work without permission? Germany's ruling provides the first real answer, and it leans toward protecting the creator. Whether or not OpenAI appeals, the message is clear. The unregulated era of "train first, justify later" is ending. What comes next will likely define the balance between creative ownership and machine learning for years to come. If the last decade was about how far AI could go, the next one may be about how fairly it gets there.