Overview
- The Landgericht München’s 42nd Civil Chamber found OpenAI infringed rights by using nine lyrics without a license to train ChatGPT.
- Judges ordered OpenAI to pay damages, stop storing or outputting the specified texts, and disclose usage details and related revenues.
- The case involves well‑known songs including “Atemlos,” “Männer,” “Über den Wolken,” and “In der Weihnachtsbäckerei.”
- The court treated near‑verbatim outputs on simple prompts as evidence of memorization, a claim OpenAI disputes as it maintains the model synthesizes rather than stores texts.
- The decision is not final, with observers expecting an appeal and possible questions for higher courts, and it could tilt negotiations toward licensing across creative industries.