SoundCloud Faces Scrutiny Over AI Training Clause

SoundCloud has denied accusations that it is using artist content to train AI models.

What happened:

Last week tech outlet Futurism shone a light on a 2024 update in SoundCloud's Terms of Service (TOS).

It states unless creators have an agreement that says otherwise, those uploading 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".

The response:

In a statement, SoundCloud claims it "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".

It claims the TOS update was simply to "clarify how content may interact with AI technologies within SoundCloud's own platform".

Those use cases include "personalized recommendations, content organization, fraud detection, and improvements to content identification".

The future:

SoundCloud claims any future uses of AI will be "designed to support human artists, enhancing the tools, capabilities, reach and opportunities available to them on our platform".