In the first major court loss for AI music company Suno, Munich Regional Court in Germany overnight ruled against the platform, finding that the company illegally ingested copyrighted compositions to train its AI models without proper licences.
The case brought by GEMA, the country’s performing rights organisation (similar to Australia’s APRA), used examples of famous tracks including Alphaville’s Forever Young, Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5 and Boney M’s Daddy Cool to prove the infringement.
For the music industry, the case sets a significant legal precedent which could open the door for other cases, potentially crippling the fledgling tech company. Suno is now forced to open its financials to disclose all revenues earned from the infringing activity and will then be required to pay damages.
The court rejected Suno’s defence that its model merely “learned patterns” without storing protected tracks. GEMA established that by prompting Suno, the songs were in fact reproducible.
GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmüller said: "AI models based on the theft of intellectual property are not protected by law. AI providers must acquire licenses and may not use the works of our members free of charge."
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Despite the ruling, the case is far from over, with Suno looking likely to appeal the case. In a statement issued by a spokesperson after the ruling, they said: “We built Suno around a core belief: to empower everyone to experience the joy of making music... We disagree with today's ruling – which rests on a fundamental mischaracterization of how Suno's technology works, how it is used and how U.S. law applies – and are evaluating all available options, including an appeal.”
Suno’s argument relied heavily on ‘fair use’ principles and text and data mining exemptions; however, despite the training and ingestion happening in the US, the German court ruled that use of that material still breached European law by allowing the tool to be used there. This will be particularly pertinent as a precedent in Australia where ‘fair use’ is more similar to the European model.
In a key finding, the judge also clarified that the text and data mining act only allows the temporary reproduction of content for analysis, not for memorisation, and that the outputs able to be generated from the source material went far beyond ‘analysis’.
The case is a clear judgement that training of AI without proper licensing is illegal, a principle that could have wide-ranging applications not just in music. Should the judgement be upheld, it could have impacts across the AI industry including global behemoths Google, Meta, Anthropic and more, all of whom admit to ingesting content under the guise of “fair use”.
t has been a bad ferw weeks for Suno, admitting to a major data breach affecting 55.3 million users, also shining a light on just how widespread use of the platform is as damages are calculated.
The ruling has echoes of the industry’s piracy cases against Napster and Kazaa in the early 2000s, which provided a legal framework and certainty around music licensing that led to the current streaming boom.
The company currently has a licensing arrangement with the Warner Music Group which indemnifies them from damages for past usage, a deal which may seem less groundbreaking after today’s decision. Both Universal and Sony are suing the company, with this precedent likely to help in other jurisdictions.
In what will be a fascinating time ahead, it remains to be seen what impact the case—should it be upheld on appeal—will have on the industry more broadly. If the platform is infringing and the tool is illegal, what then for revenues generated by tracks such as Josh Fawaz’s Like A Prayer, known to have been generated using Suno?
One thing’s for sure: this is not the end, it is just the beginning of the next big music industry battle.
This one’s for you Suno!
