Court Finds OpenAI in Violation of German Copyright Law, Orders Damages

A regional court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI’s ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by reproducing lyrics from songs by best-selling musician Herbert Grönemeyer, among others, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The case, brought by German music rights society GEMA, alleged that OpenAI trained its language models on protected works from nine German songs, including Grönemeyer’s hits “Männer” and “Bochum.” Presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered OpenAI to pay damages, though the amount was not disclosed.

GEMA, whose members include composers, lyricists, and publishers, said it hoped the ruling would open discussions on fair remuneration for copyright holders. “The internet is not a self-service store, and human creative achievements are not free templates,” GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmueller said following the decision.

OpenAI argued that its models do not store or copy specific training data but instead generate outputs based on learned patterns from the entire dataset. The company maintained that responsibility for reproducing copyrighted text lies with the user issuing the prompt, not the model itself. The court rejected that defense, finding that both the memorization of protected content and its reproduction through ChatGPT outputs infringed copyright exploitation rights.

The decision could set an important precedent for how AI companies use copyrighted materials in Europe. OpenAI said it disagreed with the ruling and was considering next steps, noting the decision affects “a limited set of lyrics.”

The dispute adds to a growing wave of global legal challenges over AI training data. Earlier this year, leading Bollywood music labels sought to join a similar lawsuit in India, signaling broader industry pushback against how generative AI tools use copyrighted music.

:::info Feature image by Levart_Photographer on Unsplash.

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