MediaNama’s Take: Who should be held liable when an AI chatbot like ChatGPT of OpenAI spews out a copyright-infringing output based on a specific prompt? The person who entered the prompt? Or, the machine that generated the infringed answer or output?

This perpetual question still lacks a definitive answer, as AI-specific policies and laws are being developed and understood worldwide. In one such legal process, a regional court in Germany made an important observation regarding how and whether AI companies should be held liable for generating copyright-infringing material by ruling that the content stored in the “memory” of LLMs can also potentially fall under the same ambit as their foundational databases, especially in cases of copyright infringement.

This ambiguity surrounding AI liability needs to be addressed, as the barriers to reproducing high-quality content, including copyrighted content, continue to decrease as LLMs become even more powerful. To illustrate the scale of AI-driven copyright and intellectual property violations, we can refer to instances that have occurred since the launch of OpenAI’s latest Sora model. For reference, the X account, @seemscopied has been documenting the copyright and intellectual property infringed content generated by the AI models. 

What’s the News?

On November 11, Judge Dr Elke Schwager found OpenAI guilty of negligence for reproducing the copyrighted lyrics of German songs. One interesting observation made by the court is that, in the absence of a license to use the copyrighted content, not only the reproduction of the content but also its memorisation will fall under the scope of copyright infringement.

For some contextual reference, in February 2024, OpenAI introduced a feature for ChatGPT that enables it to recall conversations with users. Later in May, the AI company expanded this feature to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, making it now available to all customers, including those with free accounts. “As you chat with ChatGPT, you can ask it to remember something specific or let it pick up details itself. ChatGPT’s memory will get better the more you use it, and you’ll start to notice the improvements over time,” claimed the AI company in its blogpost.

Some More Context in the Case Against OpenAI

In November 2024, the German music rights collecting society Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (GEMA) filed a copyright infringement complaint against OpenAI for reproducing and training AI models based on song lyrics. It is important to note that this current lawsuit is only against the lyrics OpenAI has reproduced and not for the musical compositions of those songs, which are also equally eligible for copyright protection and technically feasible for the AI companies to reproduce as well. 

This lawsuit is significant because it may have EU-wide implications, as Germany adheres to the copyright laws…


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Last Update: November 12, 2025