GEMA wins landmark lawsuit against OpenAI over song lyrics

German music rights group GEMA has won a copyright case against OpenAI for using copyrighted material without consent or payment.

The regional court in Munich ruled that OpenAI trained its artificial intelligence on copyrighted content from nine German songs, including works by Kristina Bach, Rolf Zuckowski, and best-selling musician Herbert Grönemeyer.

OpenAI neglected to acquire licenses for German song lyrics in GEMA’s repertoire before using them to train ChatGPT. Now, ChatGPT’s systems contain copies of original works that are reproduced and made available to users through prompts.

These reproductions constitute copyright infringement, meaning that OpenAI should pay an appropriate remuneration to the rights holders.

Judge Elke Schwager of the regional court in Munich ordered OpenAI to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material, but did so without disclosing a figure.

Music rights group GEMA is happy with the court’s ruling.

“Today, we have set a precedent that both protects and clarifies the rights of creative copyright holders: operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must also comply with copyright law,” Kai Welp, general counsel for GEMA, said in a statement in German news outlets.

“The verdict represents a milestone on the way to obtaining fair remuneration for authors and creators throughout Europe. Even tech giants must obtain licenses for the use of intellectual property; they cannot evade their obligations,” he added.

An OpenAI spokesperson told Euronews in an email that the company disagrees with the ruling and is considering appealing the court’s decision.

“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,” he said.

GEMA filed the lawsuit against OpenAI in November 2024, claiming that the AI company had systematically used copyrighted material without permission or payment, whereas other companies had paid licensing fees.

GEMA has another lawsuit pending against AI music generator Suno, which is scheduled for a hearing on January 26th, 2026. The music rights group claims that Suno’s AI tool was trained with recordings from GEMA’s catalog and now reproduces similar songs.

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