Suno faces non-final German ruling on music copyright

According to IP Helpdesk’s article “German court finds Suno liable for copyright infringement over AI-generated music - IP Helpdesk”, which cites Bayern.Recht, Munich Regional Court I largely upheld GEMA’s claims against Suno on 31 July 2026 in case 42 O 763/25. The dispute concerns six musical compositions, rather than lyrics or rights in the original sound recordings. The court reportedly prohibited reproducing the works to train models in the United States and reproducing them in Germany through storage in model parameters or other data structures. It also upheld claims for information and damages concerning several works, although the article specifies no damages amounts awarded. As of 28 August 2026, the judgment was not final and Suno was considering an appeal among its options. The full reasoning has not been independently checked.

According to the account, the court found that protected elements of the compositions could be reproduced through relatively simple prompts: a form of “memorisation” sufficient to constitute reproduction even without retaining identifiable audio files. The text and data mining exception could cover copies needed to prepare the training corpus, but not protected elements incorporated into the model and subsequently reproducible. The court also reportedly found that the exception’s lawful-access requirement was not met because the recordings had been downloaded by circumventing a YouTube technical protection. Applying US law to training conducted in the United States, it reportedly rejected the fair use defence in the circumstances of this case.

IP Helpdesk further reports that the disputed generated tracks were treated as recognisable adaptations of the compositions. The reproductions were attributed to Suno because users’ prompts did not determine the protected musical elements appearing in the outputs. The court reportedly also prohibited certain communications to the public in Germany and the reproduction and communication of the disputed adaptations. Although it rejected the claim specifically based on the making-available right, it reportedly found a broader communication to the public and denied the Digital Services Act hosting exemption, treating the outputs as generated by the service rather than merely stored for users.