Credit: QubixStudio/Shutterstock OpenAI logo displayed on smartphone screen with CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman in the background
OpenAI, the $157 billion-valued US-based AI giant behind ChatGPT, has been sued by German collection society and licensing body GEMA.
GEMA alleges that OpenAI, via its ChatGPT chatbot, “reproduce[es] protected song lyrics by German authors without having acquired licenses or paid the authors in question”.
According to the organization, the lawsuit aims “to prove that OpenAI systematically uses GEMA’s repertoire to train its systems.”
GEMA represents the copyrights of around 95,000 members in Germany (composers, lyricists, music publishers) as well as over two million rightsholders worldwide.
The lawsuit marks the latest major lawsuit filed against an AI company over the alleged unlicensed reproduction of song lyrics via a chatbot.
Last fall, Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO filed a lawsuit against Anthropic claiming that the company’s Claude chatbot “unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works – including the lyrics to myriad musical compositions owned or controlled by [plaintiffs].”
GEMA noted on Wednesday (November 13) that OpenAI “has become the world’s leading provider in the field of generative AI and now boasts annual sales over $2 billion” and that in 2024, “the company is aiming for sales of up to $5 billion”.
But it claims, however, that OpenAI’s ChatGPT “was trained with copyrighted texts, including song lyrics from the repertoire of around 95,000 GEMA members” who have “not yet been paid for the use of their works”.
GEMA filed the lawsuit with the Munich Regional Court on Wednesday against US parent company OpenAI, LLC and OpenAI Ireland Ltd., the company’s operator in Europe.
The lawsuit claims that “when simple prompts are entered, [ChatGPT] reproduces the original song lyrics with which the system has obviously been trained”.
GEMA said on Wednesday that “while other internet services pay licensing fees to authors for using their texts, OpenAI systematically makes use of the authors’ content, deliberately infringing copyrights” and that “fair remuneration is circumvented”.
GEMA’s lawsuit claims that numerous well-known German music artists, including Kristina Bach (“Atemlos”), Rolf Zuckowski, Reinhard Mey, Inga Humpe, Thomas Eckert, Ulf Sommer and Peter Plate, as well as their music publishers, support GEMA’s lawsuit.
The collection society alleges that their “song lyrics have demonstrably been exploited by the chatbot without remuneration”.
The lawsuit arrived just over a month after GEMA proposed a generative AI licensing model.
Last week, GEMA launched an ‘AI Charter’ calling for a responsible approach to generative AI.
GEMA has also launched a microsite dedicated to its legal action against OpenAI.
“Our members‘ songs are not free raw material for generative AI systems providers‘ business models.”
Dr. Tobias Holzmüller, GEMA
Dr. Tobias Holzmüller, CEO of GEMA, said, “Our members‘ songs are not free raw material for generative AI systems providers‘ business models. Anyone who wants to use these songs must acquire a license and remunerate the authors fairly. We have developed a license model for this. We are taking and will always take legal action against unlicensed use.”
“GEMA’s lawsuit sends an important signal: the livelihood of us creative professionals is at stake.”
Dr. Ralf Weigand, GEMA
Supervisory Board Chairman Dr. Ralf Weigand added: “Last week, we made it clear with GEMA’s AI Charter that human creative achievements must not be used as a free template for the offerings of AI providers in a deeply commercial exploitation chain.
“Likewise, we cannot accept that copyright infringements occur in the output of chatbots. GEMA’s lawsuit sends an important signal: the livelihood of us creative professionals is at stake.”
“The new technology presents us with fundamental legal questions that we absolutely must clarify.”
Dr. Kai Welp, GEMA
GEMA General Counsel Dr. Kai Welp, said: “The new technology presents us with fundamental legal questions that we absolutely must clarify.
“This is the only way we will succeed in establishing a licensing model on the market that strikes a fair balance between creators‘ and exploiters‘ interests. Our model procedure makes a decisive contribution to this. However, it also shows that we are prepared to enforce the rights to which authors are entitled.”
Other AI companies that face legal action for using music without permission include AI music generators Suno and Udio.
In June, the controversial startups were sued by the major record companies for allegedly training their systems using the majors’ recordings without permission.
Both companies have as much as admitted via court filings that they used copyrighted recordings from the companies that sued them.
Separately, OpenAI recently won a copyright battle brought by two news outlets. MBW asked what the outcome could mean for the music industry’s lawsuits against AI firms?Music Business Worldwide
