Germany: Lawsuit concerning text and data mining as a potential violation of copyright (Kneschke v LAION/Case 310 O.22723)
Progress
Current status
under investigation
10 Dec 2025 under investigation
27 Sep 2024 in force
Scope
Implementers
Germany
Policy Area
Intellectual property
Policy Instrument
Copyright protection regulation
Regulated Economic Activity
ML and AI development
Government Branch
judiciary
Government Body
court
Implementation Level
national
Timeline of events
Hanseatic Higher Regional Court upheld Hamburg Regional Court's judgment on lawfulness of use of photograph in AI training dataset
On 10 December 2025, the 5th Civil Senate of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court dismissed an appeal against a Hamburg Regional Court judgment, holding that the use of a photograph in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) training dataset by an associatio…
SourceEvent type
civil lawsuit
Action type
interim ruling
Government branch
judiciary
Government body
court
Hamburg District Court issued ruling in Kneschke v LAION permitting text and data mining of publicly available images to build free databases for training artificial intelligence
On 27 September 2024, the Hamburg District Court of Germany ruled that LAION, a non-profit organisation, did not infringe copyright law by building databases for the purpose of training artificial intelligence using images obtained through text and …
SourceEvent type
civil lawsuit
Action type
ruling
Government branch
judiciary
Government body
court