A Munich court sided with musicians: the Suno generator trained on other people’s songs without permission

The Munich Regional Court has ruled that Suno, the company that generates music with artificial intelligence, infringed copyright: it was not entitled to process works represented by GEMA, Germany’s collecting society for composers, lyricists and music publishers.

Resident Advisor reported the ruling, citing Reuters.

The court ordered the firm to disclose revenue linked to the infringement and found it liable for damages, the amount of which is yet to be determined. The ruling can be appealed.

GEMA alleged that Suno used, stored and reproduced copyrighted music to train its models without a licence or payment to rightsholders. At a hearing in March the society said it had presented evidence that AI-generated outputs matched original compositions in melody, harmony and rhythm.

Suno disagrees with the decision. The company argues its technology is designed to create new songs rather than reproduce existing ones, and is considering an appeal.