$500m-valued Suno hit with new copyright lawsuit from Germany’s GEMA.
AI music generator Suno continues to be one of the most controversial entities in the music business today.
In June, the $500 million company was sued by the major record companies, along with fellow AI firm Udio, for allegedly training their systems using the majors’ recordings without permission – an accusation they pretty much admitted to in court filings in August.
Now Suno is also being sued for copyright infringement by German collection society and licensing body, GEMA.
GEMA represents the copyrights of around 95,000 members in Germany (composers, lyricists, music publishers) as well as over two million rightsholders worldwide.
GEMA accuses the AI company of “processing protected recordings of world-famous songs” without permission or remuneration.
According to GEMA, the AI tool generates audio content “that is confusingly similar to the original songs”.
GEMA alleges that Suno is ripping off songs by Alphaville (Forever Young), Kristina Bach (Atemlos), Lou Bega (Mambo No. 5), Frank Farian (Daddy Cool), and Modern Talking (Cheri Cheri Lady).
GEMA alleged that OpenAI, via its ChatGPT chatbot, “reproduce[es] protected song lyrics by German authors without having acquired licenses or paid the authors in question”
GEMA filed the lawsuit against Suno with the Munich Regional Court on January 21.
