SoundCloud Says it “Never Used Artist Content to Train AI Models” Amid T&C Outcry

SoundCloud’s current terms and conditions authorize it to train AI on user-submitted content. The company denies having ever done so.

Last week, a passage from SoundCloud’s terms and conditions enabling the company to train AI on user submitted content made its rounds online among content creators. SoundCloud has now issued a statement claiming that it has never explored this option.

The policy, which seems to have been added to the T&C in February 2024, garnered significant attention when Fairly Trained Founder Ed Newton-Rex posted about it on X. “You 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,” it reads.

”My question to SoundCloud is: does this include generative AI models? If so, I’ll remove my music and would encourage others to do the same,” wrote Newton-Rex. “Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt before removing my music. Hoping they address this asap.”

To SoundCloud’s credit, they have. “SoundCloud has never used artist content to train AI models, nor do we develop AI tools or allow third parties to scrape or use SoundCloud content from our platform for AI training purposes,” the company’s SVP and head of communications, Marni Greenberg, wrote in a statement shared with The Verge. “In fact, we implemented technical safeguards, including a ‘no AI’ tag on our site to explicitly prohibit unauthorized use.”

What, then, is the purpose of the TOC passage? SoundCloud says it enables them to fine-tune features that are in uploaders’ best interests.

Greenberg’s statement continued, “Any future application of AI at SoundCloud will be designed to support human artists, enhancing the tools, capabilities, reach and opportunities available to them on our platform. Examples include improving music recommendations, generating playlists, organizing content, and detecting fraudulent activity. These efforts are aligned with existing licensing agreements and ethical standards.”

SoundCloud was founded in 2007 and boasts over 140 million users, about 40 million of which are content creators. According to this year’s IMS Business Report, the platform saw a 14% increase in electronic music genres in 2024.