Landgericht München I (Munich Regional Court I), Germany · Docket 42 O 14139/24
Appellate Phase
Latest development · November 11, 2025
The Munich court held that ChatGPT's memorization and reproduction of nine German song lyrics infringed copyright and that the EU text-and-data-mining exception did not cover it. First-instance only; OpenAI has said it will appeal.
Europe's first major AI copyright merits ruling. The court found model memorization of lyrics constitutes reproduction, and that the TDM exception does not shelter generative training that yields protected outputs.
The EU counterweight to U.S. fair use: if it stands on appeal, training and output liability in Europe diverges sharply from the American cases, and every multinational deployment inherits that split.
German song lyrics (nine compositions at issue)
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