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 its usage, Suno will now have to pay damages, yet to be determined by the court.

GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmüller said that the win “strengthens” Europe as a cultural centre.

“All generative AI is based on human creativity; artificial intelligence is nothing without humans. Today, the Chamber made one thing crystal clear: AI models built on stolen intellectual property have no protection under the law. AI service providers must pay for licences rather than helping themselves to our members’ works free of charge.”

Released in December 2023, Suno can generate a full muiscal track based on a user-given word or audio prompt. As a result of a major data breach, Suno’s source code was leaked in 2026, which revealed that it used content stolen from platforms including YouTube Music, Deezer and lyric site Genius.

In 2024, Suno admitted to training with “medium- and high-quality music we can find on the open internet” which “indeed” included copyrighted materials, but has consistenly denied that this constitutes copyright infringement.

Filed in January 2025 GEMA’s case is the first one to be brought against an AI music tool in Europe, though Suno is also facing another lawsuit from Danish music rights organisation Koda filed in November.

Suno is also facing a major case in the US. In 2024, the Recording Industry Association of America filed its lawsuit against both Suno and fellow AI music tool Udio. Including plaintiffs Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group, the case similarly argues that the organisations are training and reproducing its music without permission or licensing.

Warner stepped down as a plaintiff on the case after forging a partnership with Suno in November 2025, while Udio has settled with both Universal Music Group and Warner.

Photo © Matheus Bertelli/Pexels

In 2025, GEMA also successfully brought action against OpenAI, arguing that ChatGPT was being trained on and reproducing protected song lyrics without a license. The Regional Court of Munich found that a Text and Data Mining exemption in German law does not apply to OpenAI, and ruled that the US-based company must stop storing unlicensed lyrics and pay damages at a later date. OpenAI has appealed the decision, with the ruling to arrive in September.

The ruling was applauded by Australian music rights organisation and APRA AMCOS and its CEO Dean Ormston, who are championing the protection of musicians’ copyright against AI domestically.

“Munich has called it what it is. Not innovation. Theft. The Australian Prime Minister said the same thing at the University of Sydney: no company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. Anything less, is theft,” Ormston said.

“Suno knows where we are. The path forward is negotiation, built on consent and fair payment. We expect that conversation to start now.”

More about GEMA and its lawsuit can be found here.