ChatGPT’s Use of Song Lyrics Violates Copyright, Munich Court Finds

A Munich court ruled that OpenAI's ChatGPT unlawfully reproduced copyrighted song lyrics, ordering the company to cease reproduction, disclose training details, and pay damages to rights holders. This case, backed by Germany's national music rights organization, GEMA, suggests that large language models may violate EU copyright by memorizing protected works. The court highlighted that GPT-4 and GPT-4o had memorized lyrics from several well-known songs, such as those by Kristina Bach and Rolf Zuckowski. This ruling, which is not yet final, could significantly influence how AI companies procure and license creative materials in Europe. OpenAI responded that their models do not store or reproduce training data directly, and instead, they generate new outputs based on learned patterns from prompts. The court's decision contradicts this defense, emphasizing that reproductions embedded in a model's structure exceed typical data-mining exemptions.

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