GEMA sues OpenAI: Lyrics built on theft?
GEMA is taking legal action against OpenAI: The ChatGPT company had not acquired any licenses for the exploitation of song lyrics.
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GEMA is now taking action in the battle over the question of how copyright law relates to AI models and their underlying content mining. The collecting society is suing the US provider before the Munich Regional Court. The allegation: OpenAI has illegally used the lyrics of GEMA members' songs for the training of ChatGPT.
"The songs of our members are not the free raw material for the business models of the providers of generative AI systems," says GEMA Managing Director Tobias Holzmüller. OpenAI must acquire licenses and remunerate authors fairly, is the demand. GEMA believes that it can easily prove to OpenAI that the provider has violated copyright law several times in the case of the song lyrics: Not only the processing, but also unauthorized modifications were created by ChatGPT – from GEMA's point of view, infringements of moral rights.
Little interest in AI license model so far
What normally sounds like a matter of course in copyright law is more complicated when it comes to AI training. In 2019, the European Union introduced copyright restrictions that allow the mining of texts and data in Europe from publicly accessible sources under certain conditions. However, the conditions under which these copyright restrictions actually apply and what a legally effective exclusion of processing must look like is controversial and is increasingly occupying the courts. Creative associations and collecting societies are demanding that AI operators pay royalties to their members. GEMA presented an AI licensing model in September –, but so far AI companies have shown little interest in finding a solution in this way.
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GEMA now wants to clarify the legal situation with its lawsuit before the Munich Regional Court. One possibility is for the court to formulate questions for the European Court of Justice to clarify the facts of the case. If GEMA wins the case, OpenAI could not only face massive payment obligations – but also the obligation to delete all GEMA repertoire tokens from the models' databases and reset them.
(dahe)
