A German court ruled on Tuesday that OpenAI violated copyright on nine popular songs in a lawsuit filed by music rights group GEMA. The Munich Regional Court found that the US company had used copyrighted song lyrics to train its ChatGPT language generator without a licence. GEMA sued the artificial intelligence company specifically over the use of nine well-known songs, including "Atemlos," best known as Helene Fischer's hugely successful interpretation "Atemlos durch die Nacht," and Herbert Grönemeyer's "Männer." ChatGPT reproduced text that was almost identical to the lyrics, which the court considered to be evidence that they had been stored in OpenAI's systems. The court ordered OpenAI to refrain from storing the lyrics and outputting them in its models, to pay damages, and to disclose information about the use of the songs and the income generated from them. The ruling is not yet final and is likely to be appealed. The final decision could have implications far beyond song lyrics for the use of all works of art by generative AI, expert Silke von Lewinski from the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich said. She believes that a definitive GEMA victory in the case would shift the balance of power between the creative industries and technology companies. "Before a text can be used for generative AI, the rights holders would have to give their consent and would have the opportunity to be remunerated," she said.