Two weeks ago, I wrote a column on how IA training licenses for music could work by assuming that the development of such transactions is a question of moment, rather than if. I said that I would come back to the subject, to focus on how right-handers could divide the money from these offers, but I was interrupted by the attack on the Trump administration against a end-of-evening talk show, because 2025. Now there are more relevant news, as far as the reason I think is the license for the II is in court.
In the United States, that’s not quite. The trial of the main labels against Suno and Udio implies fair use, so it is possible – but, I think, unlikely – that a court can determine that Suno and Udio do not need a license to copy music in order to train their AI algorithms. (The two parties are in settlement negotiations.) The European Union does not have equitable use – and the first of the two major cases which could clarify the EU’s law on AI and music is carried before the courts on Monday, September 29.
That morning, a Munich district court will hear the Gema’s trial against Openai to copy the words he controls. (The second case is Gema’s costume against Suno to copy recordings as well as its release of songs that resemble the originals.) From the point of view of the United States, it may seem unusual-why does a collection society deal with words and how important they are, anyway? European collection companies control various rights, including mechanics, which, in some cases, include words – which are protected by copyright in the same way as the songs are.
From a legal point of view, the words have the same problems as the recordings. “It is the same principle as in the Suno affair,” said GEMA Advocate General Ka Welp. Just as in this case, the first question – probably the most important – is whether an AI company needs a license to copy work for ingestion for training purposes. It depends on knowing whether a rights holder has “chosen” – told technological companies that a job is not freely available for training – which Gema has done on behalf of its songwriters and publishers, although Openai says that it did not do it on each online source. Unlike the Suno affair, “there is no dispute on territoriality,” explains Welp. This means that the Copyright Act of the EU applies.
Like the Suno trial, this case also involves problems of “outing” – the results generated by giving the algorithm different invites. In some cases, Openai has returned all the lyrics of a song, just as Suno generated music that looks almost exactly to the original recordings. So GEMA also continues to violate the law “Making Déponsee” – which is similar to a public display when it comes to words. (There is also what Welp calls “a hallucination in the exit” – a change in words – so in a case, GEMA also continues for a violation of the right to create derivative works.)
There is also a more technical question that could become very important: does AI generate a new copy of work between entry and exit? Theoretically, a generative AI algorithm would ingest a work, would analyze it and then use this analysis and others to create new works. If the algorithm simply publishes an original work, however, it probably copies it to do this. However, this is resolved, cases like this will almost certainly lead the engineers to program algorithms to avoid turning the original works as out.
Although German copyright cases can take time to resolve, this court hearing should only take a few hours. In a few months, the court should either make a verdict – that one or the other party could call on a superior court – or refer a legal question or questions to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. This could make a more important verdict, because it would clarify the law, or at least certain questions involved, throughout the European Union.
From a financial point of view, this case may not be so serious-the violation of copyright in the EU does not come with the high statutory damage it makes in the United States, this is not the point. “We want to put pressure on companies to acquire licenses,” explains Welp. For this, this affair offers some ways to win, just like the Suno case, although some are more decisive than others. How cases like this form, the law will determine the effect of negotiation lever that the two parties have, but it gradually becomes more difficult to imagine how AI music could become a serious business without a kind of license in place. It will take a while, and perhaps other judicial affairs, to understand how it will work.
