The lawsuit, filed by the German licensing agency GEMA, resulted in a verdict requiring Suno to disclose its illicit revenue and pay damages that have yet to be determined.
While Suno argues the German court lacks jurisdiction over training activities conducted in the United States, the court found the company unlawfully used existing songs to enable its platform to generate new tracks from text prompts.
This ruling is significant for the global AI infrastructure and creative economy because it addresses whether generative AI companies must obtain licenses before using copyrighted works for machine learning.
GEMA, which represents over two million rights holders, argued that Suno’s aggressive business model creates unfair competition by flooding streaming services with approximately 75,000 AI-generated tracks daily.
By focusing on how the AI outputs closely resemble original works like "Mambo No.
5" and "Daddy Cool," the court's decision establishes a precedent for protecting the economic market of human creators against machine-synthesized music.
The legal battle now moves toward quantifying financial compensation, a process that could force a shift in how AI companies calculate capital expenditure to include licensing fees.
While Suno is evaluating an appeal, the case highlights a growing push by music collecting societies to force technology firms into "eye-to-eye" licensing negotiations.
The ultimate goal, according to GEMA, is to ensure that AI-generated sounds do not outcompete human-created music by remaining artificially inexpensive through the unlicensed use of existing data.