A German court has determined that OpenAI’s ChatGPT breached the country’s copyright regulations by utilizing licensed musical pieces for training its language models without authorization, as reported by multiple news sources, including The Guardian.  

This decision arose from a lawsuit filed by GEMA, a German organization that oversees music rights in Germany, against OpenAI last November. The company has been mandated to pay an undisclosed sum in damages to GEMA but stated that it disagrees with the judgement and is “considering next steps.” GEMA, on the other hand, has viewed this as the “first significant AI ruling in Europe.”  

“Today, we have established a precedent that safeguards and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI solutions like ChatGPT are required to adhere to copyright law,” stated GEMA chief executive Tobias Holzmüller, according to The Guardian. “Today, we have effectively defended the livelihoods of music creators.” 

OpenAI is facing lawsuits from other creatives and media organizations concerning the same matter.