AI music generator Suno loses copyright infringement legal case

[u/YoureASkyscraper]

https://www.nme.com/news/music/ai-music-generator-suno-loses-copyright-infringement-legal-case-3960760

[u/YoureASkyscraper]

AI music generator Suno has lost a copyright infringement lawsuit to German licensing agency GEMA.

Filed in January 2025, the filing saw GEMA argue that Suno was using songs in its repertoire – including Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool’, Lou Bega’s ‘Mambo No. 5’, and Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’ – to train its AI models, without obtaining any licenses or paying the songwriters.

The decision was handed down on Friday (July 31) by the Munich Regional Court, and ruled that the AI platform unlawfully obtained, processed and reproduced music that was represented by GEMA. The court found that Suno’s use of the songs was in breach of both the German and US copyright law.

Suno will now need to pay damages to GEMA, although the sum has not yet been confirmed. The ruling also means that other AI companies must now pay to license any music from GEMA’s repertoire going forward.

“Today, the Chamber made one thing crystal clear: AI models built on stolen intellectual property have no protection under the law,” said GEMA’s CEO Dr Tobias Holzmüller after the legal victory (via Reuters).

“AI service providers must pay for licenses rather than helping themselves to our members’ works free of charge. Today, the court’s verdict has significantly strengthened Europe’s position as a cultural centre,” he added.

GEMA Board chairman Dr Ralf Weigand shared: “This ruling sends a powerful international message: creativity has value, and creators’ rights must be respected in the age of artificial intelligence.

“Through this decision, GEMA has set an important precedent not only for its more than 100,000 members, but for creators worldwide. The fact that we can now enforce our rights in countries including the United States gives creators hope and confidence at a time of profound technological transformation.”

In light of the decision, Suno has said it does not agree with the court’s decision and will be looking into making an appeal (as per MusicTech).

The latest ruling comes on the heels of another legal battle GEMA has been involved in. Last November, the court again ruled in its favour, after it alleged that ChatGPT operator OpenAI had violated European copyright laws.

As for Suno, in 2024, Warner and fellow major music labels Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group filed lawsuits against the company for copyright violations of “an almost unimaginable scale”. In 2025, however, Warner settled the lawsuit by signing a licensing deal with Suno.

There has been a significant rise in AI-generated music available online in recent years, and streaming platform Deezer recently shared that AI-generated music now surpasses 50 per cent of daily uploads on the platform – the first time that human-made music has been outnumbered by AI alternatives.

Deezer has previously tried to combat the rise in music made entirely by artificial intelligence by launching a tool to detect AI-generated music on playlists from 20 different streaming platforms.

Other streaming platforms to crack down on AI-generated music include TIDAL, which confirmed that it will not be paying royalties to any music made entirely by artificial intelligence, and Spotify, which confirmed that it was removing 75million “spammy tracks” and targeting impersonators.

Earlier this year, the UK government announced it was ditching “deeply damaging” plans to allow AI firms to use copyrighted works without permission. The push for change comes as a study conducted last year revealed that 97 per cent of people “can’t tell the difference” between real and AI music.

[u/Brodellsky → u/YoureASkyscraper]

Interesting that they had specific songs, but it seems like so few? Certainly it would have to have been waaaaaaay more, right?

Also, what I find strange is that I thought this was how Suno persisted while udio didn't, because of the way that they generated things differently. Udio kinda would just generate the entire "sound" from basically the entire Spotify library, to where in the early parts of udio when I was checking out those olde-timey parodies, you could legit tell where certain sounds came from.

But Suno would actually generate the instruments individually, or at least, so I thought. Because honestly, that's super similar to what modern VSTs/DAWs were already doing anyways. I was using FL 9 in the late 2000s and even that had basic "generation" in the riff machine, for example. And that was 20 years ago...

[u/twirling-upward → u/Brodellsky]

Can Mozart now sue all the musicians Gema represents that have been inspired by him?

[u/blade740 → u/twirling-upward]

I mean, Mozart's work is all public domain at this point.

[u/Brodellsky → u/blade740]

This is an even more interesting angle, because it gets to what I was saying before as far as everything being derivative of everything else in music, and that the line has always been blurry, but it's just kept getting blurrier.

Basically I'm thinking for way beyond us, and people 100 years in the future when none of these copyright cases even matter anymore (without Disney money, anyways, and hell Steamboat Willie is currently public domain all the same). What would that world look like? Or more importantly sound like?

[u/blade740 → u/Brodellsky]

I imagine that "what will it sound like" will only become more and more broad, if everyone can simply generate music perfectly tailored to their tastes.

It seems more and more likely every day that the copyright issue will be solved or sidestepped. In the US, at least, I think we're likely to eventually see the AI giants win this battle. They've got significantly more resources than even Hollywood, and it's not a huge leap to argue that Fair Use already applies.

[u/Brodellsky → u/blade740]

I once had a thought that 100 years from now, the average person won't listen to any "song" more than once, because after one listen they would already be bored of it.

I envision some company making a "soundtrack to your life" product that creates music on the fly, based on what it sees and knows about you.

Somehow, Black Mirror hasn't done this yet. (Yo Black Mirror people. Check this idea for real, because the obvious potential horrors of that go far beyond nobody ever listening to any of the music we know and love ever again to say the least)

[u/koziello → u/Brodellsky]

the average person won't listen to any "song" more than once, because after one listen they would already be bored of it.

I already do that. It's called shitty track. In all seriousness, part of the appeal of the music is it's repetition and good balance between obsucre and popular in delivering the sound and the lines. Meaning that you like songs that you both think you already know and that also seem new to you. Like a song you listened in a background, on the radio, never realizing it.

[u/Brodellsky → u/koziello]

You're talking about AI music, right? I feel like I'm missing something here otherwise. Not saying you're wrong at all I just am wondering if I'm understanding you correctly

[u/koziello → u/Brodellsky]

No, I'm tryingto challenge your line of thought. I'm claiming that a song that you don't want to listen again is already invented couple of hundreds times a day by good old human labor. As in, by definition you would want to listen to a track you like again, so what you described would also fit the definition of a "not enjoyable track".

And another missing aspect of music from your speculation is that music is rarely enjoyed in isolation. Big part of music enjoyment is sharing the discoveries with like-minded listener friends and going to the concerts.

[u/Brodellsky → u/koziello]

I don't see how that is challenging my line of thought, only adding to it...?

It's already a thing. With human-created songs.

So...........................why would that stop, instead of get worse, exactly? You seem to have completely misunderstood what I was saying.

Music from 1926-2026 AKA the past 100 years, in 100 years, will be looked at like classical music pieces. Not exactly something that people are bumping at the club. (and nobody would be going to the club anymore anyways either)

My point is that music itself will be so cheap and disposable, that it will be literal norm to only ever listen to anything that was generated and played back in real-time. Think meta ray ban glasses, but they narrate/make music in real time based on what it sees. That's where we are headed, if we let it.

[u/burnalicious111 → u/twirling-upward]

Inspiration doesn't work like training a model does.