Suno loses GEMA copyright case in Munich
Munich I Regional Court ruled that Suno's v3.5 and v4 models contain six works — including 'Rasputin' and 'Mambo No. 5' — in reproducible form rather than merely analyzing them, and ordered an injunction, disclosure, and damages. It is the first major European ruling that memorized training data inside a model is itself infringement, putting a price on operating in Europe without an opt-in publishing license and setting up pending EU cases to follow. Judge Schwager also held the outputs fall outside US fair use, cutting against last year's Anthropic and Meta rulings. Suno called the decision a mischaracterization of its technology and is weighing an appeal.
Source: musically.com ↗
The court is convinced that the musical pieces in question are reproducibly contained in the defendant's models, versions v3.5 and v4.
Why this matters
- → First major European ruling that training-data memorization in AI models is direct copyright infringement, not
- → Puts immediate financial and legal cost on operating AI music services in Europe without licensing deals
- → Contradicts US fair-use precedent, setting up divergent legal regimes for the same technology