In a landmark victory for GEMA, the Raue law firm has secured a ruling from the Munich I Regional Court that OpenAI cannot use copyright-protected song lyrics from GEMA members to train its AI models if ChatGPT is subsequently able to reproduce these lyrics. Such use requires a licence. This is the first time that a German court has confirmed that AI providers cannot use copyright-protected content.
Background to the proceedings: GEMA sued OpenAI after it emerged that ChatGPT was reproducing copyrighted song lyrics, including those by Helene Fischer, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Rolf Zuckowski. Users could access these lyrics by entering prompts such as ‘What are the lyrics to ‘Atemlos’?’ The court considers this to be unauthorised public disclosure, for which the consent of the authors or their collecting society, GEMA, is required. The court also ruled that the memorisation of song lyrics in OpenAI’s language models constitutes copyright infringement. The regional court thus accepted GEMA’s arguments on all key points.
This ruling from Munich creates legal certainty for creative professionals, music publishers and platforms throughout Europe, and it is likely to set a precedent with an impact that extends far beyond Germany.
(11 November 2025)