Munich Court Rules Suno Infringed Copyright Training AI on GEMA Music

The Munich Regional Court ruled on Friday, July 31, 2026, that American music-generation platform Suno infringed copyright by training its models on works from the repertoire of GEMA, Germany's music rights collecting society. It is the first ruling in Europe to state unequivocally that AI companies must pay for licenses to the music used to train their models rather than using it for free.

What the court found

Judge Elke Schwager stated that randomness as an explanation for the model reproducing the songs is ruled out, given the complexity and length of the compositions examined. In other words, the court did not accept Suno's argument that the similarity between the generated tracks and the originals was a coincidence arising from the model's statistical operation.

The ruling covers two separate infringements. First, simply storing the protected songs inside the model violates the right of reproduction. Second, making the songs generated on that basis available to users violates the right of communication to the public. The court granted GEMA's claims for an injunction against further infringement, disclosure of financial information, and damages, the amount of which will be determined in a later stage of the proceedings.

The case and the songs in dispute

The lawsuit, filed in January 2025, concerned six specific compositions, including works by artists such as Alphaville, Lou Bega, Helene Fischer and Boney M. GEMA argued that Suno used more than two million songs scraped from the internet to train its models, without the creators' consent and without paying any royalties.

Suno, a company based in Massachusetts, defended itself by arguing that its technology trains models to create new songs rather than to reproduce existing ones. The court rejected that argument, finding that the evidence presented in the proceedings showed the model is capable of reproducing recognizable fragments of protected compositions.

AI models built on stolen intellectual property are not protected by law. AI service providers must pay for licenses instead of using our members' works for free. - Dr. Tobias Holzmüller, CEO of GEMA

We disagree with today's ruling, which is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how our technology works. - Suno spokesperson

Reactions and next steps

Suno said it is considering all available options, including an appeal to a higher court. The Munich court's ruling is not yet final. Industry organizations, including the UK's Ivors Academy, BPI and IFPI, welcomed the ruling, stressing that new technology does not exempt companies from complying with copyright law.

This is GEMA's second win against AI companies within a year. In November 2025, the organization won a similar case against the operator of ChatGPT, though that ruling is also under appeal. In parallel, major record labels' lawsuits against Suno and rival Udio are ongoing in the United States, and Sony Music recently sued Udio over 30,000 recordings.

What it means for the industry

The Munich ruling is the first in Europe to explicitly require AI companies to license music used both for training a model and for generating commercial output. For European creators and collecting societies, including Poland's ZAiKS, it sets a precedent showing that local courts are willing to enforce copyright against foreign AI platforms, even when the model training took place outside Europe.

For companies developing generative music models, the ruling means real financial and legal risk in entering the European market without first securing licenses from collecting societies. It could accelerate commercial licensing deals between AI platforms and labels or rights organizations, following the pattern of settlements some labels are already negotiating with generative AI providers.

The final amount of damages owed to GEMA is not yet known and depends on revenue data Suno is required to disclose. The case is likely headed to a higher court, meaning a final resolution is still many months away.