{"id":2071188,"date":"2026-07-31T14:27:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T11:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2071188"},"modified":"2026-07-31T14:27:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T11:27:05","slug":"suno-held-liable-for-infringing-german-song-copyrights-in-landmark-court-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2071188","title":{"rendered":"Suno Held Liable for Infringing German Song Copyrights in Landmark Court Ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tA German court says Suno illegally trained its model on unlicensed songs administered by the country\u2019s PRO \u2014 one of the first major legal blows to an AI music company amid worldwide copyright infringement litigation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Friday (July 31) ruling out of Munich Regional Court is a seminal victory for GEMA, the German collection society for performance royalties. The organization sued Suno at the beginning of 2025 for allegedly infringing well-known German compositions including Boney M.\u2019s \u201cRasputin,\u201d Alphaville\u2019s \u201cForever Young\u201d and Lou Bega\u2019s \u201cMambo No. 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tIs Suno the Music Industry\u2019s Biggest Nightmare \u2014 or Greatest\u00a0Hope?\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

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    Kristin Robinson<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    \n\tAccording to Reuters<\/em>, the Munich court held that Suno did not have the right under the country\u2019s copyright laws to feed German-owned compositions into its popular AI model without compensation. The court ordered financial damages, although these have not yet been quantified, and the ruling is appealable. Reps for both GEMA and Suno confirmed the substance of the decision in statements on Friday.<\/p>\n

    \n\t\u201cThe court made it clear today: AI models based on the theft of intellectual property are not protected by law,\u201d said GEMA\u2019s CEO, Tobias Holzm\u00fcller<\/strong>. \u201cAI providers must acquire licenses and may not use the works of our members free of charge. In doing so, the court has significantly strengthened Europe\u2019s position as a cultural hub. If systems are operated in Europe, legal action can also be taken in European courts. This is crucial for the enforcement of the law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

    \n\tSuno said, \u201cWe disagree with today\u2019s ruling \u2014 which rests on a fundamental mischaracterization of how Suno\u2019s technology works, how it is used and how U.S. law applies \u2014 and are evaluating all available options, including an appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n\t\u201cWe built Suno around a core belief: to empower everyone to experience the joy of making music,\u201d added Suno. \u201cOur tools give people the ability to create new songs, whether they are top artists, product developers, songwriters using our tools in their workflows or everyday music fans. From the beginning, we trained our models to create new songs, not reproduce existing ones, and built protections into our platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n\tGEMA initiated the German case against Suno seven months after the three major record label groups \u2014 Universal Music Group (UMG), Warner Music Group (WMG) and Sony Music \u2014 teamed up to sue both Suno and its rival Udio in the U.S. for copyright infringement in 2024. The two cases are markedly different; GEMA\u2019s claims are focused on compositions<\/em>, while the major label groups are suing over sound recordings<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    \n\tEurope and the U.S. also operate under very different copyright laws, meaning the two lawsuits won\u2019t necessarily have the same outcomes. In the U.S., Suno (and Udio) have maintained that their AI training processes are widely protected under the American legal principle of fair use.<\/p>\n

    \n\tWMG settled its claims against Suno by inking a licensing agreement at the end of last year, while both WMG and UMG have similar deals in place with Udio. But Sony Music and UMG are still pursuing claims against Suno, and Sony Music remains in active litigation with Udio. Those cases remain in the evidence discovery phase, meaning it\u2019ll be months before judges issue any rulings on the merits.<\/p>\n

    \n\tMeanwhile, GEMA also sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI two years ago for allegedly infringing the lyrics in its song portfolio. The Munich Regional Court ruled in GEMA\u2019s favor in that case this past November.<\/p>\n

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    [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/suno-liable-gema-german-copyright-lawsuit\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ai-music-generic-illustration-billboard-3-1800.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard A German court says Suno illegally trained its model on unlicensed songs administered by the country\u2019s PRO \u2014 one of the first major legal blows to an AI music company amid worldwide copyright infringement litigation. The Friday (July 31) ruling out of Munich Regional Court is a seminal victory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-2071188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2071188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2071188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2071188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2071188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}