The case of LAION: The first (German) court decision on text and data mining (TDM) in the context of machine learning – Comment on Regional Court of Hamburg, judgment of 27 September 2024 – 310 O 227/23 [with a machine translation of the judgment],

The Regional Court of Hamburg has published the first German and probably also the first European court decision on text and data mining (TDM) in the context of machine learning. Albeit the decision concerns the preparation of training datasets only, the judgment addresses the broa­ der question of whether reproductions of works in the context of training (generative) machine learning models can be permissible under Art. 3 f. DSM Directive1 , Sections 44b, 60d of the German Copyright Act2 . A shortened machine translation of the judgment is provided below. The subse­ quent comment briefly introduces the relevant technical basics and discusses the court’s statements, identifying both strengths and weaknesses of the judgment. The comment discusses especially whether, and if so, to which extent machine learning training constitutes TDM within the mea­ ning of Art. 3 f. DSM Directive, and Sections 44b, 60d of the German Copyright Act by which the German legislator has transposed the DSM provi­ sions into national law. Furthermore, the comment analyses the requirement of machine-readability for rights reservations concerning online con­ tent.