A German court has ruled that OpenAI have broken German law by using copyrighted songs to train its language model Chat GPT.
The action was brought by the German music rights society, GEMA which alleged that ChatGPT harvested lyrics from artists to ‘learn’ from them. GEMA used nine major hits as examples in the case, which included Männer (Men), Herbert Grönemeyer’s synth pop hit from 1984 and Helene Fischer’s Atemlos Durch die Nacht (Breathless Through the Night) which you probably didn’t know was the official German anthem for the 2014 World Cup (which they won, of course).
GEMA’s chief executive Tobias Holzmüller greeted the decision, saying “the internet is not a self-service store and human creative achievements are not free templates”.
“Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law. Today, we have successfully defended the livelihoods of music creators.”
The ruling is significant in that it establishes a precedent in German law and thus – in theory, at least - for the rest of the EU.
This is the point that Raue, the law firm that represented GEMA, made in a statement.: “(It) sets an important precedent for the protection of creative works and sends a clear signal to the global tech industry” while creating “legal certainty for creators, music publishers and platforms across Europe”.
OpenAI will no doubt appeal. They said in their statement: “We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps. The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day.”
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