German court convicts Suno for training his musical AI on protected works

The Munich Regional Court has ruled that the US start-up Suno has violated the rights of the collecting society GEMA by using protected securities to train its AI.

The Munich Regional Court found that Suno, an American start-up specializing in the music generation by IA, violated the rights held by the German collective management company GEMA by dragging his models on protected pieces — among them "Rasputin" by Boney M., "Forever Young" by Alphaville or "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega — without a prior license. The court found jurisdiction over training in the United States, based on a rule of law specific to collecting societies, and rejected the defence's "fair use" argument.

Suno's decision prohibits four distinct types of acts related to reproduction, memorization, communication to the public and production of outputs similar to protected works. The company must now disclose the extent of its use of this directory to allow the calculation of damages, and would consider an appeal to the Munich Court of Appeal. This is the first European court decision specifically targeting a musical generation tool by IA generative.