Key Facts
- Germany: The Munich I Regional Court announced its judgment in GEMA v. Suno Inc., case 42 O 763/25, on July 31, 2026.
- Result: The court said it largely granted GEMA’s claims for an injunction, information and damages.
- Scope: The case concerned six musical compositions and did not adjudicate alleged infringement of song lyrics.
- Status: The court expressly said the judgment was not final.
The Munich I Regional Court announced that Suno infringed rights in six musical compositions through training copies, its AI models and generated music. The July 31 ruling matters because it addresses several stages of an AI music system, but it does not establish a universal rule for all AI training.
The court largely granted claims brought by GEMA, a German organization that manages music rights. The announced relief included an injunction, information and damages, although the court’s release did not state a damages amount.
What Suno’s product does
Suno provides an AI music generator that creates music in response to user prompts. The court said the company’s training data included the six compositions and that Suno used stream-ripping to copy them from YouTube.
What the court decided
The court said the six works could be reproduced from Suno models v3.5 and v4, which were stored on servers in Germany. It treated this model “memorization” as reproduction under German copyright law.
The court also found recognizable protected elements in outputs generated in Germany. It attributed those outputs to Suno because the prompts did not specify melody, harmony, rhythm or arrangement.
For copies made during training in the United States, the court applied U.S. law and rejected Suno’s fair-use defense on the facts presented. The court emphasized that the tested outputs were substantially similar to the original works.
Suno’s defenses
Suno disputed whether the works were protected and recognizable in the outputs. It argued that training data were not stored in the models and that similarities resulted from prompts and learned statistical patterns.
Suno also challenged the German court’s authority over conduct in the United States. It argued that U.S. fair use and German text-and-data-mining limits protected the uses at issue.
The trial court rejected those material defenses in reaching its announced result.
What the ruling does not decide
The ruling concerns six identified compositions and the evidence presented about Suno’s models and outputs. Song lyrics were not part of the claims decided in this case.
The court did not announce that every use of copyrighted music for AI training necessarily infringes. It also stated that the judgment was not final.
What happens next
The court said the judgment was not final. The court’s public announcement does not provide the judgment’s complete injunction terms or quantify damages.
This report is based on the court’s detailed announcement and related procedural notices rather than the full written judgment.
