SoundCloud Just Updated Its Terms of Service Following Backlash Over AI Policy
You may be having a bad week, but AI is having an even worse one. First there was the “ racist glitch” that plagued Grok , and now music platform SoundCloud is facing serious criticism over a clause buried in its terms of service.
The confusion began in February 2024, when SoundCloud quietly changed its terms of service to include the following:
Unless otherwise stated in a separate agreement, you expressly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop, or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services within and for the provision of the Services.
It’s been sitting quietly in TOS for over a year, but this week Ed Newton noticed the change and posted a message on his X account. The backlash was immediate and strong, with many musicians and SoundCloud users condemning the use of their music to train AI.
However, some of this user anger seems misplaced: the situation is more complex than it first appears.
What Soundcloud Planned to Do With AI
It’s easy to see why musicians wouldn’t want their work used to train machines designed to replace them, but according to SoundCloud, the TOS change was never about that.
The company’s president, Elia Seton, published an open letter on Wednesday explaining that they use AI to “develop smarter recommendations, search, playlists, content tagging, and tools to help prevent fraud,” but that the company has never “used artist content to train AI models. Not for music creation. Not for large language models. Not for anything that tries to imitate or replace your work.”
According to Seton, it was essentially a misunderstanding. “The language in the Terms of Service was too broad and not clear enough. This created confusion, and that is our fault,” Seton wrote.
To agree or to refuse: the eternal question
SoundCloud may have been clear about how it’s used AI in the past, but the company has been coy about what it plans to do with your music in the future. An initial response to the controversy, provided in a statement to the Verge by Marnie Greenberg, SoundCloud’s senior vice president and head of communications, explained: “If we ever consider using user-generated content to train generative AI models, we will implement clear opt-out mechanisms in advance.”
The community responded: “Isn’t that supposed to sound like ‘ agreement ‘?”
“Yeah, subscribe. Sounds great,” SoundCloud eventually responded.
How SoundCloud Plans to Change Its Terms of Service
In an open letter, SoundCloud CEO Seton detailed the planned changes to the service’s terms of service. The offending AI section will be replaced with:
We will not use your content to train generative artificial intelligence models that aim to reproduce or synthesize your voice, music or image without your explicit consent, which must be provided through a consent mechanism.
So AI won’t be used to copy or synthesize users’ music unless they choose to do so. SoundCloud will likely continue to use AI for recommendations, tagging, and playlisting — far more benign and common uses of the technology.
A couple of lessons from this outbreak: First, working with AI requires companies to be crystal clear about how the AI will be used. Second, we should all read the TOS.