Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner uncovered four datasets of music being used to train AI models and made them fully searchable for the public. Two of the sets are enormous, containing 12 million and 9 million tracks, while the other two each include over 100,000 songs. According to Reisner, the datasets have been downloaded thousands of times, and both Google and Stability have confirmed using them in research papers.
While the datasets are freely available online, three are distributed as lists of links to songs on YouTube or Spotify. AI developers download the actual audio using tools that automate the job—some of which bypass logins, ads, and mechanisms that compensate creators, violating those platforms' terms of service. Some sources, like the Free Music Archive, require licensing for commercial applications.
Artists named in the datasets range from pop stars like Lady Gaga and Fred Again.. to Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Wu-Tang Clan, Bruce Springsteen, and experimental composer Hainbach. Readers can search the songs, books, and other media via the Atlantic's AI Watchdog site.