“It looks like the allure of a trove of training data is just too great to be turned down in the age of generative AI": SoundCloud denies that it uses your music to train AI

SoundCloud has denied that it uses AI training on music its users have uploaded.

It comes after a Futurism article which alleges that Soundcloud updated its terms and conditions in February 2024 to allow such a thing. The new terms read that: "in the absence of a separate agreement that states otherwise," creators who upload content to the site "explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services."

That would appear to be absolutely clear. But after a backlash from many musicians and users, the platform has issued a denial. Marni Greenberg, Head of Communications at SoundCloud, said: “(We do not) develop AI tools or allow third parties to scrape or use SoundCloud content from our platform for AI training purposes.”

“In fact, we implemented technical safeguards, including a ‘no AI’ tag on our site to explicitly prohibit unauthorised use,” Greenberg added. She said that the updated terms of service intended to “clarify how content may interact with AI technologies within SoundCloud’s own platforms”.

She did however say that whilst SoundCloud “prohibits” the use of licensed content, such as music from major labels, for “training any AI models, including generative AI”, it does allows the “possibility of AI-related use” on other types of content.

You might well ask ‘er… what’s the difference?’

And whilst we’re on the subject, how come it’s taken over fifteen months for anyone to notice the change in T&Cs?

Ed Newton-Rex, founder of non-profit Fairly Trained has written an article for Music Business Worldwide which criticises SoundCloud’s new terms and conditions and what appears to be their new policy. "Unfortunately, even for a platform that calls itself artist-first like SoundCloud, it looks like the allure of a trove of training data is just too great to be turned down in the age of generative AI."

SoundCloud users themselves have been far from impressed. One posted on Twitter/X: "If you’re a musician/composer/artist/band etc and have a SoundCloud account, I’d urge you to consider whether it’s worth keeping your music on there."

Another wrote: "Deleting my music from SoundCloud. I don't need them using my stuff without my permission to train their AI crap. Seriously, why can't companies just eff off with this?"