In the event you’ve ever believed that your use of AI might go below the radar, assume once more. Whereas The Atlantic’s AI Watchdog has been round for some time now, it’s at the moment gaining traction amongst musicians of all sizes and styles – and the outcomes appear to counsel that no person is protected from their work getting used in opposition to their will.
Final 12 months, unbiased artists started submitting lawsuits in opposition to Suno and Udio for “trampling” on the rights of smaller creatives. And, if the AI Watchdog’s findings are right, the issue might be worse than it initially appeared.
Launched in September 2025, the launch of the AI Watchdog software discovered that greater than “7.5 million books, 81 million analysis articles, 15 million YouTube movies, and writing from tens of hundreds of films and tv exhibits” have been allegedly all included in information units used to coach AI merchandise.
Previous to the discharge of the AI Watchdog software, The Atlantic was scorching on AI’s tail. Author Alex Reisner particularly lined a lot of oddities throughout the online, from noting AI’s “sneaky” addition to YouTube movies (the choice to ‘enhance readability’ appeared to be a method of coaching AI), to calling out a The Widespread Crawl Basis for allegedly “funnelling paywalled articles to AI builders”.
Earlier this week, Reisner found that “big datasets of songs” have been shared inside AI-development areas. “One has 12 million tracks,” the author claims. “One other has 9 million. The 2 smaller datasets every have greater than 100,000. “The 12-million-track dataset, by itself, would take 91 years to hearken to.”
Scarily, Reisner notes that the mass datasets have additionally already been downloaded “hundreds of instances”. Apparently, Google is amongst those that have downloaded one of many smaller datasets, reportedly downloading from the Free Music Archive to coach AI fashions. Stability AI has additionally revealed it has educated on the Free Music Archive to coach its techniques.
In mild of the brand new findings, many artists have been sharing their worries over their music getting used in opposition to their will. Producer DJ Sabrina The Teen DJ particularly has clapped again at anybody calling their music “AI slop”, taking to X to say: “it’s humorous how there have been no accusations of my music sounding like AI slop till these datasets began getting used to generate slop.”
to everybody who thought my music gave the impression of ai slop, did you ever assume it was as a result of Suno was utilizing a dataset that contained 22 of my songs?
it’s humorous how there have been no accusations of my music sounding like ai slop till these datasets began getting used to generate slop pic.twitter.com/SerSnaLO46
— DJSabrinaTheTeenDJ (@DJSTTDJ) June 18, 2026
One other X consumer additionally searched up Quedeca’s catalogue on AI Watchdog – and located that there have been “295 grabs throughout 8 recognized information units from numerous releases, snippets, movies, and corresponding lyrics from Genius”. In response, the artist might solely reply with a bleak be aware of sarcasm: “Yayyyyy!”
Even smaller breakcore producer sophia_hjkl, who solely has round has a mixed following of round 10,000 throughout their X and Instagram accounts, is being looped into the shitstorm. “Suno and Udio [have] used138 of my songs throughout two of their datasets,” the artist writes. “That is virtually my complete catalogue of music.”
the atlantic simply revealed a searchable database of the music utilized by suno and udio. they used *100 and thirty eight* of my songs throughout two of their datasets. that is virtually my complete catalogue of music. it is nearly all the things i’ve launched from 2017 to 2024. pic.twitter.com/dnudQKY83J
— Sophiaaaahjkl;8901 (@sophia_hjkl) June 18, 2026
At present, it appears no large artists have spoken out in regards to the AI Watchdog figures. However producer Vince Valholla, the pinnacle of Valholla Information, has posted a damning video on X. “Late final evening I came upon over 100+ songs from our catalogue have been used to coach AI fashions,” the proprietor says.
“To be trustworthy, till the most important labels undergo their lawsuits, there’s no method for artists or labels to struggle again,” he continues. “They actually scraped one of the best songs from our catalogue. I’m sick.”
Late final evening I came upon over 100+ songs from our catalog have been used to coach AI fashions. Due to The Atlantic, they leaked a database of thousands and thousands of songs which have been utilized by the largest AI music firms like Udio and Suno.
To be trustworthy, till the most important labels go… https://t.co/7D0kcVybwS pic.twitter.com/3d2cmei0u9
— Vince Valholla (@VinceValholla) June 19, 2026
Australia’s official music copyright crew, APRA AMCOS, has additionally irritated that it is going to be launching an investigation into The Atlantic’s findings. Opening on an inventory of notable acts – from Nick Cave to Kylie Minogue – a press launch entitled “PROOF OF THEFT” condemns AI firms which have allegedly stolen mass datasets for coaching functions.
With Australia formally rejecting copyright exception for AI platforms in October, APRA AMCOS isn’t too happy with the findings. In line with the press launch, the corporate will probably be launching an investigation into the Australian and New Zealong songs which have been compromised. “No permission, no licence, no cost,” the corporate’s Chief Government, Dean Ormston, writes. “These aren’t bargaining chips, they’re the life’s work of Australian and New Zealand songwriters.”
Over on Reddit, many followers are frantically looking for a method of serving to their favorite artists from being utilized in AI coaching. “I doubt [someone] like [hypercore rapper] Jane Remover would need their shit used as birdfeed for an AI mannequin,” one consumer writes.
One other consumer named Scott The Pisces, a small British producer, even notes that his personal work is outwardly included in a number of the datasets. “Discovered 10 songs of mine on the dataset, and I’m not even well-known,” he writes.
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