Suno AI Loses German Copyright Lawsuit

German Court Rules Against AI Music Startup Suno in Copyright Case

A German court has ruled against AI music startup Suno, siding with music rights organization GEMA in a copyright infringement lawsuit. The Munich Regional Court determined that Suno violated copyright law by utilizing music from GEMA’s catalog to train its artificial intelligence models and by reproducing protected works without the necessary licenses.

The ruling mandates that AI companies must secure licenses for the commercial use of GEMA’s repertoire, encompassing both the training of AI models and the subsequent generation of music.

The legal challenge specifically focused on six songs, including well-known tracks like “Daddy Cool,” “Rasputin,” “Forever Young,” and “Mambo No. 5.” GEMA had accused Suno of training its AI on these copyrighted songs without obtaining prior permission.

In response to the verdict, Suno stated that its platform was designed to assist users in creating original music, rather than replicating existing songs. The company expressed its belief that the ruling stems from a misunderstanding of its technology’s operational principles and indicated it is exploring its legal recourse.

“Our tools empower individuals to create new songs, whether they are established artists, product developers, songwriters integrating our tools into their workflows, or everyday music enthusiasts,” Suno said in a statement. “From inception, we trained our models to generate new songs, not to reproduce existing ones, and have implemented safeguards within our platform. We disagree with today’s ruling, which is based on a fundamental misrepresentation of how Suno’s technology functions, its application, and the relevance of U.S. law. We are currently evaluating all available options, including an appeal.”

This decision follows a similar copyright victory for GEMA approximately eight months ago against OpenAI. In that case, a Munich court found that ChatGPT had unlawfully reproduced copyrighted song lyrics.

The current ruling also arrives as Suno faces increasing legal scrutiny regarding the methodology behind its AI model development. Earlier this month, leaked source code revealed that the company’s training data included over 113,000 hours of YouTube Music, 62,000 hours from Pond5, and 12,000 hours from Deezer. This information lends support to claims from the music industry that Suno trained its AI on copyrighted recordings without authorization, allegations that the company continues to contest in court.