ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
A court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by using hits from top-selling musicians to train its language models in what creative industry advocates described as a landmark European ruling.The Munich regional court sided in favour of Germany’s music rights society GEMA, which said ChatGPT had harvested protected lyrics by popular artists to “learn” from them.The collecting society GEMA, which manages the rights of composers, lyricists and music publishers and has approximately 100,000 members, filed the case against OpenAI in November 2024.The lawsuit was seen as a key European test case in a campaign to stop AI scraping of creative output.OpenAI can appeal against the decision.
ChatGPT allows users to ask questions and type commands into a chatbot, which responds with text that resembles human language patterns,The model underlying ChatGPT is trained on widely available data,The case revolved around nine of the most recognisable German hits of recent decades, which were used by ChatGPT to hone its language capabilities,They included Herbert Grönemeyer’s 1984 synth-pop sendup of masculinity, Männer (Men), and Helene Fischer’s Atemlos Durch die Nacht (Breathless Through the Night), which was the unofficial anthem of the German side during the 2014 football World Cup,The presiding judge ordered OpenAI to pay undisclosed damages for using copyrighted material without permission.
The GEMA legal adviser Kai Welp said the organisation now hoped to negotiate with OpenAI on how rights holders could be compensated,The San Francisco-based company, whose founders include Sam Altman and Elon Musk, had said its language learning models absorbed entire training sets of data rather than storing or copying specific songs, the Munich court said,Because its output is generated by users of the chatbot via their prompts, OpenAI said, they were the ones who should be held legally liable for it – an argument rejected by the court,GEMA welcomed the decision as “the first landmark AI ruling in Europe”, saying it could have implications for other types of creative output,Its chief executive, Tobias Holzmüller, said the decision proved “the internet is not a self-service store and human creative achievements are not free templates”.
“Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law,Today, we have successfully defended the livelihoods of music creators,”The Berlin law firm Raue, which represented GEMA, said in a statement that the court’s decision “sets an important precedent for the protection of creative works and sends a clear signal to the global tech industry” while creating “legal certainty for creators, music publishers and platforms across Europe”,The ruling “is likely to have an impact far beyond Germany as a precedent”, it said,The German Journalists’ Association also hailed the ruling as “a milestone victory for copyright law”.
OpenAI said in a statement it would weigh an appeal,“We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps,” it said,“The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day,”It added: “We respect the rights of creators and content owners and are having productive conversations with many organisations around the world, so that they can also benefit from the opportunities of this technology,”OpenAI has faced litigation in the US from authors and media groups claiming ChatGPT has been trained on their work without permission.
The 5% first home buyers scheme is a miserable policy failure – and the latest chapter in Australia’s housing disgrace | Greg Jericho
The story of Australia’s housing policy over the past 25 years is one of governments doing all they can to juice demand for housing while steadily reducing the supply of public housing.This trend continues as the latest housing finance figures suggest house prices are set to rise off the back of investors rushing into the market to beat the introduction of the 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers.Whether it be the 50% capital gains tax discount and negative gearing that gives investors a leg up, or first home buyer grants that try to balance that bias, the big emphasis is always on the demand side of the equation.And so the story continues with the 5% deposit guarantee for first home buyers that began on 1 October.It’s a policy that notionally makes it easier for first home buyers to get a home loan
SSE is a winner in the great grid upgrade. Who is looking out for consumers and small businesses? | Nils Pratley
It is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to upgrade the UK electricity network”, gushed Martin Pibworth, the chief executive of SSE, and you can understand his excitement. The great grid upgrade has put a rocket under his share price. SSE’s shares soared 17% on Wednesday as the group laid out plans to spend the phenomenal sum of £33bn – more than the company’s current stock market value – over the next five years.That’s terrific news for SSE shareholders, but the stock market’s enthusiasm will do nothing to quiet two big worries about the sprint to upgrade the electricity grid. Has the regulator Ofgem – under orders from the government to get the upgrade done by 2030 – had to throw gold in the path of SSE, Scottish Power and National Grid Group, the trio behind the overall £80bn network investment programme? And what does it all mean for electricity consumers – households and businesses – who will fund this upgrade through their bills?From the point of view of SSE’s shareholders, the worry was that the mighty step up in spending, including £27bn alone on electricity networks, would have to be backed by a hefty issue of new shares
Anthropic announces $50bn plan for datacenter construction in US
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50bn investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new datacenters in Texas and New York.“We’re getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren’t possible before,” Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in a press release.Building the massive information warehouses takes an average of two years in the US and requires copious amounts of energy to fuel the facilities. The company, maker of the AI chatbot Claude, popular with businesses adopting AI, said in a statement that the “scale of this investment is necessary to meet the growing demand for Claude from hundreds of thousands of businesses while keeping our research at the frontier”. Anthropic said its projects will create about 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs
Waymo announces that its robotaxis will drive freeways for the first time
Alphabet’s Waymo said on Wednesday that it will begin offering robotaxi rides that use freeways across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, a first for the Google subsidiary as it steps up expansion amid global and domestic competition in the self-driving industry.Freeway rides will initially be available to early-access users, Waymo said. “When a freeway route is meaningfully faster, they can be matched with a freeway trip, providing quicker, smoother, and more efficient rides,” it said.Waymo, which already operates in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, is also extending operations to San Jose, including Mineta San Jose international airport, the second airport in its service area after Phoenix Sky Harbor.The move comes as Tesla expands its robotaxi service with safety monitors and drivers, and Zoox – backed by Amazon – offers free robotaxi rides on and around the Las Vegas Strip
Reversed burger curse and ‘deep motivations’ may help Oscar Piastri turn Formula One season around
As Oscar Piastri desperately works to rebound from his recent Formula One woes, an Australian restaurant chain is doing its part to keep his title hopes alive.After offering free burgers for every time the Australian made the podium, Grill’d burger chain has apologised for putting a “curse” on the McLaren driver.Piastri has not finished in the top three since the promotion was relaunched five races ago, with his teammate Lando Norris taking the championship lead off him.Grill’d’s Piastri 81 Burger was first put on the menu before the Australian Grand Prix in March, with Piastri’s endorsement, after he was on the podium in Italy and was leading the championship.But since then the 24-year-old driver has crashed, collided and picked up penalty points
Sinner into last four of ATP Finals after straight-sets win over Zverev – as it happened
Jannik Sinner is through to the semi-finals of the ATP Finals with a match to spare after beating Alexander Zverev.The Wimbledon champion, on home soil in Turin, triumphed 6-4, 6-3 for a fifth straight win over the German world No 3 Zverev.Sinner ended the match with 28 winners to 14 unforced errors, having dropped just eight points on his first serve.“I felt like I was serving very well in the important moments. I tried to play the best tennis possible when it mattered,” he said
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