Overview
- A professional photographer has appealed to the Bundesgerichtshof against Laion, a Hamburg non-profit that published a dataset listing 5.85 billion image–text URL pairs for AI training.
- Lower courts in Hamburg rejected the photographer’s claim by applying statutory exceptions for text and data mining that allow automated analysis of digital works.
- The dispute turns on a technical step: although Laion published only URLs, it and researchers downloaded and analysed images or previews to check that captions matched the pictures.
- The photographer argues those downloads were unauthorised reproductions that ignored a rights holder’s machine‑readable access restrictions and so violated copyright.
- The BGH’s forthcoming decision will set binding limits for dataset builders, influence how researchers may use web images, and could affect photographers’ ability to control and be paid for commercial reuse.