Musicians uploading to SoundCloud recently raised concerns that their content could be being used to train AI, but according to the music sharing platform, there’s been a misunderstanding.
An extract from the Terms of Use , which is publicly outlined on the SoundCloud website, began to cause alarm among artists last week, as it states that “in the absence of a separate agreement that states otherwise, 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”. According to the platform itself, this doesn’t refer to AI tech that exists outside of SoundCloud.
While music makers began sharing their worries online just recently, this term has been in place for over a year already, with the last amendment to the Terms of Use article dated as 7 February 2024. Further details in SoundCloud’s ToU left artists under the impression they would need to opt out having their music scraped and fed to generative AI, or that by having third party involvement (such as a label) in the upload of their music, they’d have blanket protection from this term. To gather some clarity on the matter, MusicTech reached out to SoundCloud for further information.
Going to explore this further because there is apparently an option to opt out in settings per song but I can’t find it on the app.I like having a sketchbook sort of place to plop ideas and that’s how I’ve been using SoundCloudI’m likely to be deleting my account and I’m tiny#musicsky #diymusic
— Professeur Whom (@professeurwhom.bsky.social) 2025-05-09T14:07:53.907Z
Well that sucks.Deleted all my tracks this morning.Siiiiiiigh
According to SoundCloud, this update to its ToU “was intended to clarify how content may interact with AI technologies within SoundCloud’s own platform”, including personalised recommendations, content organisation, fraud detection, and “improvements to content identification with the help of AI technologies”. It also clarifies that these efforts are aligned with existing licensing agreements and ethical standards.
“SoundCloud has always been and will remain artist-first. Our focus is on empowering artists with control, clarity, and meaningful opportunities to grow. We believe AI, when developed responsibly, can expand creative potential – especially when guided by principles of consent, attribution, and fair compensation,” a spokesperson tells MusicTech. “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. In fact, we implemented technical safeguards, including a ‘no AI’ tag on our site to explicitly prohibit unauthorised use.”
While SoundCloud doesn’t completely rule out any other work with external AI technologies in the future, it does claim that “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.” The spokesperson adds, “We understand the concerns raised and remain committed to open dialogue. Artists will continue to have control over their work, and we’ll keep our community informed every step of the way as we explore innovation and apply AI technologies responsibly, especially as legal and commercial frameworks continue to evolve.”
For users who still remain uncomfortable with their content being used to inform its internal AI usage, it seems you can still opt out on a track-by-track basis. The Terms of Use outlines that you can in fact “limit and restrict the availability of certain of your content [sic] to other users of the platform, and to users of Linked Services, at any time using the permissions tab in the track edit section for each sound you upload”.
While SoundCloud did not clarify what it means by a separate agreement when asked by MusicTech, the ToU states that “neither SoundCloud nor any third party is allowed to use, copy or reproduce any content delivered to the platform under separate agreements, which is owned or controlled by third party rights holders” for the purposes of informing, training, or as input to AI tech without consent from these rightsholders. This includes not only musical works, but also things like artwork, images, logos, lyrics, metadata, and more.
You can view the full Terms of Use via the SoundCloud website.
The post “SoundCloud has never used artist content to train AI models”: SoundCloud affirms it is not using your content to train generative AI amid user panic appeared first on MusicTech.
Recommended Comments
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.