On November 11, 2025 (local time), the Munich District Court in Germany handed down a ruling stating that the American research institution OpenAI had violated copyright laws. This violation occurred as OpenAI utilized lyrics crafted by German musicians, without obtaining proper authorization, to train its AI model, ChatGPT. The court ordered OpenAI to provide compensation to the plaintiffs, who were represented by a prominent German music copyright association. This association stands as one of the largest collective management organizations for music copyrights in Europe, boasting a membership of approximately 100,000 songwriters and publishers.

The association accused OpenAI of "systematically" exploiting content from its copyrighted music library. Specifically, this included lyrics from nine German songs, all used without permission or any form of payment. In response, OpenAI contended that its large language models do not retain or duplicate specific data. Furthermore, the company argued that the responsibility for any content generated by these models rests with the users.

However, the court ruled otherwise. It determined that both the memory functions within OpenAI's language models and the reproduction of lyrics in ChatGPT's responses amount to copyright infringement. It's worth noting that this ruling is subject to appeal. OpenAI has expressed its disagreement with the court's decision, stating that it is currently evaluating its options. The company also claimed that the ruling pertains only to "a small volume of lyrics" and insisted that it would not impact German users' ability to access its technology.

This legal case could potentially set a significant precedent for the regulation of copyright in the context of generative AI technology across Europe.