In a “landmark victory” for musicians globally, AI music company Suno has lost a major copyright lawsuit brought by Germany’s music rights organisation GEMA.

The Munich Regional Court has found that the US-based company has breached copyright laws by using and storing songs from GEMA’s catalogue for training and replication without a license. It also found that Suno should be obliged to pay licensing fees for training and reproduction of this material, or what GEMA calls “commercial exploitation“.

Suno. Photo © Aerps.com/Unsplash

GEMA siad that it was able to use Suno to create audio content that was “indistinguishable” from those of German creators, including Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5 and Boney M’s hits Rasputin and Daddy Cool. 

The Munich Regional Court’s ruling means that even when conducting training overseas, AI companies must now obtain licenses from GEMA to use its data for training, and that cases can be brought against them in European courts for failure to comply. It also found that ‘memorisation’ of a piece of music equates to its reproduction, as this material is able to be drawn out via prompts.

Failing to evoke the US’s fair use doctrine to defend...