Court rules that OpenAI violated German copyright law; orders it to pay damages

A German court has ruled that OpenAI’s ChatGPT violated the country’s copyright laws by training its language models on licensed musical works without permission. The Guardian reports this.

The ruling resulted from a lawsuit that GEMA, a German collective that manages music rights in Germany, filed against OpenAI last November. The company was ordered to pay an undisclosed amount of damages to GEMA, but said it disagreed with the ruling and was “considering next steps.” GEMA, meanwhile, considered this the “first milestone in AI in Europe.”

“Today we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools like ChatGPT must comply with copyright law,” said GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmüller, as The Guardian reported. “Today we successfully defended the livelihoods of music creators.”

OpenAI is being sued by other creatives and media groups over the same issue.