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Let's hope AI and copyright law will annihilate each other.
I'm interested in this for two reasons. First, because when suno first came out they said that they would only train on public license music. If the court found out differently, then that's pretty damning. The second, though, I think is more interesting. Using music to train an AI model isn't too dissimilar from a cover band. They aren't replicating songs wholesale, at least as far as I know. I wonder how much argument that can make for fair use? Again, it's up to what the courts found. This isn't like an LLM regurgitating a book.
Fair use in Germany (and the EU) isn‘t really a thing. There are a few special exceptions (mostly for satire and such), but generally these rules apply:
- If you cover a song (lyrics and melody stay the same), you have to get a license and share the money you make from it with the original author. You cannot be denied this license, but you have to get it before making money off of your cover version.
- If you rework a song (change lyrics or melody), you have to get explicit permission from the rights holder. In this case, they are allowed to deny you this license. There‘s a pretty famous legal battle running since 1999 (!) between musician Moses Pelham and the band Kraftwerk, because the former used a two-second sample from one of Kraftwerk‘s songs in his work. While a final decision in this matter is still pending, it shows how even very small snippets of music made by other artists might be subject to licensing fees and the need for explicit permissions in the EU.
As far as I can tell, there is no legal way for Suno to just use songs for their product without having a licensing agreement with the respective rights holders.
Suno openly admitted they trained on copyrighted songs according to the linked article, and cover-bands absolutely need to pay license fees to the original artists when they perform on stage.
This is normally covered by a venue's blanket license.
I’m curious too.
I think it would be reasonable to argue that training AI models on a song is more like sampling it than it is like recording a cover as far as what the model is doing mechanically. If they decide to treat it like a cover they’ll still have to deal with paying whoever has the writers credits for sales and ancillary usage.
It wouldn't surprise me if this got overturned in a higher court. The precedent set in the recent CJEU Kraftwerk sampling case seems to make a lot of sampling legal as a pastiche. https://www.technollama.co.uk/pastiche-or-cliche-what-pelham-ii-might-mean-for-ai-outputs
one fucks sued others fucks. but the other fucks would not give a fuck about.
Wonderful news!
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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