German court rules OpenAI violated copyright with song lyrics
OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT has violated German copyright law by reproducing lyrics from songs by top German musician Herbert Groenemeyer and others, a Munich court ruled on Tuesday.
The court found that OpenAI’s AI was trained on protected content from nine German songs, including Groenemeyer’s hits “Maenner” and “Bochum”. The ruling orders OpenAI to pay damages, though the amount has not been disclosed, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
The case, brought by German music rights society GEMA, highlights growing global scrutiny over how AI companies use copyrighted materials for training their models. GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmueller said, “The internet is not a self-service store, and human creative achievements are not free templates.”
OpenAI argued that its models do not store or copy specific data and that outputs depend on user prompts, not the AI itself. The court disagreed, ruling that both the memorisation in the AI and the reproduction of lyrics constitute copyright infringement.
This decision could set an important precedent in Europe for AI and copyright, potentially affecting how AI companies handle copyrighted material in the future. OpenAI said it disagrees with the ruling and is considering next steps.
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