Munich hears first ever case over licences for generative AI in GEMA vs OpenAI

It is reportedly the first lawsuit worldwide against an AI provider for the unlicensed use of protected musical works. Today, Munich Regional Court is hearing the case filed by collecting society GEMA against OpenAI. The question of whether the ChatGPT provider is unlawfully using artists' data is not just about copyrights, but also about the technology used to train the AI. JUVE Patent is attending the hearing.

For once, patents are not infringed in this dispute, but rather the copyrights of music creators such as Kristina Bach, Rolf Zuckowski, Reinhard Mey, Inga Humpe, Tommi Eckart, Ulf Sommer, and Peter Plate. According to GEMA, they and their music publishers are supporting a lawsuit by the German collecting society against OpenAI. According to a press release on the filing of the lawsuit in November 2024, ChatGPT demonstrably utilised their song lyrics without remuneration.

Ten months later, they are once again in the public spotlight, as the 42nd Civil Chamber of the Regional Court Munich under presiding judge Elke Schwager hears GEMA’s lawsuit against OpenAI. GEMA primarily commercialises the copyrights of composers, lyricists and music publishers. OpenAI operates the AI application ChatGPT.

GEMA accuses OpenAI of training its systems with copyrighted musical works without acquiring a licence (case ID: 42 O 14139/24). Specifically, the case concerns the unauthorised reproduction of song lyrics via ChatGPT. According to the collecting society, the AI-supported language system was also trained with copyrighted texts from the repertoire of approximately 95,000 GEMA members without financial compensation. “When entering simple prompts, the chatbot reproduces the original lyrics of the songs with which the system has obviously been trained,” accuses GEMA.

“While other internet services pay licence fees to the authors for the use of the texts, OpenAI systematically makes use of the authors’ content, deliberately accepting copyright infringements. Fair remuneration is thus circumvented,” states a GEMA press release. GEMA aims to prove this systematic approach in the proceedings.