The Regional Court of Munich I ruled that language models from OpenAI group companies reproduce the song lyrics at issue in the proceedings essentially true to the original, so that memorization can be assumed. Memorization constitutes copyright infringement. The limitations for text and data mining are not applicable because they only protect technical intermediate steps for analysis purposes, but not the complete adoption of protected works.
The ruling is not final, and an appeal is expected. If the decision is upheld, it could have a significant impact on the business model of AI companies and the legal position of rights holders.
Read Claudia Csaky’s article here or on the Lexology website.
