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The Atlantic uncovers 'millions' of songs used for AI training - Music Ally It’s very clear that some AI-music services have trained their models on huge datasets of commercial music. But which songs exactly? That’s the question at the heart of lawsuits against Suno and Udio, and it’s also the subject of a fascinating investigation by The Atlantic’s ‘ AI Watchdog ’ project. It has been examining – and making searchable for all of us – four “giant datasets of songs that are being shared within the AI-development community”. The two biggest include 12m and 9m tracks respectively. “Companies often claim to use only content that is freely available online, but the datasets reveal the quantity of downloadable music that developers can access even though it is not supposed to be free,” wrote journalist Alex Reisner . The publication comes a few weeks after Universal Music Group and Sony Music sought to add more than 61,000 recordings to their copyright lawsuit against Suno – a move which the latter has been opposing . As The Atlantic makes clear, it’s possible to see which songs are in the four datasets that it has been examining, but while those have been “downloaded thousands of times…

The Millions of Songs Mashed Into AI-Generated Music - The Atlantic Listen − 1.0 x + Seek 0:00 16:38 Updated at 11:16 p.m. ET on June 16, 2026 L ast November, a pair of Olympic-bound figure skaters performed in a competition to a song with lyrics that sounded oddly familiar. “Every night we smash a Mercedes-Benz,” the singer began. It was one of several recognizable lines from the 1998 pop hit “You Get What You Give,” by the New Radicals. But the ice dancers’ song was otherwise different. The New Radicals’ message to angsty teenagers had been converted to Bon Jovi–style arena rock. If you knew “You Get What You Give,” this was a pretty strange variation on it. The dancers had used music generated by AI . Whatever model was involved had likely been trained on “You Get What You Give” and had copied some of the song’s content, as AI systems are prone to do . Such systems don’t always reproduce elements of existing songs in this way, but you’ll hear it now and then, and sometimes even more blatantly. Suno, one of the most popular AI music generators, for example, has pumped out tracks that strongly resemble Michael Jackson’s “ Thriller ,” Ed Sheeran’s “ Shape of You ,” Chuck Berry’s “…

The Atlantic created a searchable database of the music used to train ... AI Entertainment News The Atlantic created a searchable database of the music used to train AI Millions of tracks are freely available in datasets, even if they’re not supposed to be. Millions of tracks are freely available in datasets, even if they’re not supposed to be. by Terrence O'Brien Jun 20, 2026, 6:46 PM UTC Link Share Gift Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Part Of All the latest in AI ‘music’ see all updates Terrence O'Brien is the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths. Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner recently uncovered four datasets of music being used to train AI models and made them fully searchable for the public. Two of the sets are absolutely enormous at 12 million and 9 million tracks. The other two are much smaller, but still represent a significant amount of training data at over 100,000 songs each. According to Reisner, the sets have been downloaded thousands of times and, while it’s impossible to know exactly who has used them, Google and Stability have both confirmed they have in research papers. Some of the sources,…

The Atlantic uncovers millions of copyrighted songs in AI training data An investigation byThe Atlantichas revealed that millions of copyrighted songs have been used to train AI music models, including tracks from popular artists like Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. The publication created four searchable databases that collectively encompass 12 million, 9 million, and two additional databases with approximately 100,000 songs each. Thearticleby staff writer Alex Reisner provides insight into the extent of copyrighted music included in AI training data. Legal actions are currently underway against generative AI music platforms such as Suno and Udio, which assert fair use as a defense for using copyright-protected material. A previous lawsuit in the book publishing sector struggled to advance on copyright claims, while piracy allegations gained more traction. The initial settlement from the book publishing case amounted to $1.5 billion, with final outcomes and payouts still pending. The databases from The Atlantic may serve as valuable resources for the music industry in pursuing future lawsuits related to copyright infringement. In response to the rise of AI-generated music, many str…

The Atlantic Maps Songs Used to Train AI Music The Atlantic has published four searchable databases of music used to train AI models, putting hard numbers on a question the industry has argued about for two years. The largest set lists 12 million tracks. A second holds 9 million. The reporting, by staff writer Alex Reisner, names hit songs from Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and a long list of other major artists. What The Atlantic’s AI music databases reveal The four datasets map the copyrighted music behind popular AI music generators, including the models from Suno, Udio, and Google. Until now, the training sources were mostly hidden, and the AI companies have leaned on fair use to defend scraping the songs without licenses. The databases change that by making the sources searchable. Artists and labels can look up specific tracks, which is the kind of evidence that has been hard to produce in court. The songs Suno reproduced, from “Thriller” to “Shape of You” The investigation also shows what comes out the other end. Suno has generated tracks that strongly resemble Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” and others. The “Thriller” e…

The Atlantic created a searchable database of the music used to train AI Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner recently uncovered four datasets of music being used to train AI models and made them fully searchable for the public. Two of the sets are absolutely enormous at 12 million and 9 million tracks. The other two are much smaller, but still represent a significant amount of training data at over […]

Four music datasets holding millions of tracks are being shared among ... June 16, 2026 By Mandy Dalugdug Photo credit: Phonlamai Photo/ Shutterstock Four datasets of music are circulating among artificial intelligence developers, and together they hold more than 21 million recordings, according to a report by The Atlantic . The collections were identified by The Atlantic ‘s Alex Reisner . They are filled with copyrighted music, spanning household names and tens of thousands of lesser-known independent artists, according to the report. Two of the datasets each contain more than 100,000 recordings, according to The Atlantic, while the other two are far larger, at roughly 9 million and 12 million tracks. They include hits from major pop artists such as Bad Bunny, Nirvana, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, and the Beatles , the report said, alongside jazz artists and classical composers. All four have each been downloaded several thousand times, according to The Atlantic , though because the industry keeps its training data under wraps, it isn’t publicly known which companies have used most of them. The Atlantic reported that Google and Stability AI have used tracks from one of…