This is an informal case summary prepared for the purposes of facilitating exchange during the 2026 WIPO IP Judges Forum.
Session 3: Copyright and AI Model Training
Munich I Regional Court (Landgericht München I), Germany [2026]: GEMA v Suno, Case No. 42 O 763/25
Date of judgment: July 31, 2026
Issuing authority: Munich I Regional Court (Landgericht München I)
Level of the issuing authority: First Instance
Type of procedure: Judicial (Civil)
Subject matter: Copyright
Plaintiff/Appellant: GEMA
Defendant/Respondent: Suno
Keywords: Reproduction; Memorization; Text and data mining; Fair use; Communication to the public; Making available to the public; Adaptation; Stream ripping; Artificial intelligence
Basic facts: The plaintiff is a collecting society which administers rights in the six musical works in dispute. The defendant, based in the United States of America, developed and trained and operates the AI music application Suno. To assemble the training corpus, the defendant used stream-ripping techniques to extract and copy the works from YouTube, thereby circumventing the platform’s rolling cipher, a technical protection measure designed to prevent downloading. On prompting, the application generated sound recordings bearing substantial similarity to the works. The plaintiff sought injunctions on three bases: reproduction for training purposes in the United States; reproduction within the model in Germany; and making available to the public through the offering of the model and the application, together with the outputs. It also sought information on the extent to which the defendant has carried out these acts, a declaration of liability in damages, publication of the operative part of the judgment, and pre-litigation costs. German law applied to the acts occurred in Germany and US law applied to reproductions made in the United States, under Article 8(1) Rome II Regulation. The oral hearing was held on March 9, 2026.
IP issues before the Court:
1. Whether the Court had jurisdiction to hear the case concerning the acts which had occurred in the United States.
2. Whether the musical works were “memorized” by the model.
3. Whether the musical works were reproduced within the trained models in Germany, within the meaning of § 16(1) of the German Copyright Act.
4. Whether such reproduction in the model is covered by the text and data mining exception in § 44b of the German Copyright Act.
5. Whether the offering of the model and of the music generation application, and the outputs, infringe the right of making available to the public under § 19a of the German Copyright Actor, the general right of communication to the public under § 15(2) of the German Copyright Act, and the adaptation right under § 23(1) of the German Copyright Act.
6. Whether the reproductions made in the United States for and during training infringe United States copyright, and whether they are excused by the fair use doctrine under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
Held: The action succeeded in substantial part. The Chamber ruled as follows on each issue:
1. Yes. The special provision of Section 131(1) Copyright Collection Societies Act provides for exclusive jurisdiction for actions brought by collecting societies for infringement of the rights of representation granted to them.
2. Yes. The musical works in dispute were memorized by the model during training, as the trained parameters in the model did not only contain extracted information or patterns but coded the content of the works.
3. Yes. The works are reproduced in the models within the meaning of § 16(1) of the German Copyright Act, on the same phase-based analysis applied to language models: storage in the form of parameters or other data structures in the model is a reproduction.
4. No. § 44b of the German Copyright Act does not cover it. The exception covers the reproductions required to assemble the training corpus (phase 1) but not the further reproductions retained in the model (phase 2), where training does not merely extract information but reproduces the works.
5. In part. The claim under § 19a of the German Copyright Act failed: the plaintiff did not establish access "at a time individually chosen" where up to 176 identical prompts for the lyrics were needed to obtain a retrieval. The injunction was granted instead under §§ 97(1), 15(2) sentence 1 and 23(1) of the German Copyright Act – the general right of communication to the public, extending to adaptations recognizable in the outputs.
6. Yes, and no fair use. An injunction was granted under 17 U.S.C. § 502(a). The works are protected under 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), and the training reproductions are not covered by 17 U.S.C. § 107: the outputs were substantially similar rather than transformative, the use was commercial, and the defendant had circumvented the rolling cipher and thus acted in bad faith.
Relevant holdings in relation to copyright and AI model training: The Chamber applied the same three-phase analysis as in its earlier language-model decision, locating the contested reproduction in phase 2 and holding that reproduction within the model falls outside the definition of text and data mining, so that § 44b of the German Copyright Act and Article 4 DSM Directive do not apply, as in this case the authors interest in compensation is affected. On the communication right it distinguished the two limbs: making available under § 19a of the German Copyright Act requires access at times individually chosen, which the evidence did not establish given the number of identical prompts required, while the general right under § 15(2) sentence 1 of the German Copyright Act was engaged by the offering of the model and the application. Recognizability of at least one protected element of the works in the outputs sufficed, no distinction between §§ 16 and 23 of the German Copyright Act being necessary. For the training copies made in the United States, the Chamber applied United States law under § 293 German Code of Civil Procedure and worked through the four fair use factors on the authorities, including Warhol, Campbell, Sony. It distinguished Bartz and Kadrey on the footing that there the outputs were not infringing, whereas here the application generated recordings substantially similar to the training works, so there was no transformation in content; commercial purpose and the circumvention of the technical protection measure told further against fair use.
Relevant legislation:
German Copyright Act (DE311); Directive (EC) 2001/29 (InfoSoc Directive) (EU309); Directive (EU) 2019/790 (EU Digital Single Market Directive) (EU240); Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 (Rome II); United States Code, Title 17 - Copyrights; German Code of Civil Procedure (DE326); Collecting Societies Act (DE297)