Atlantic Reporter Publishes Searchable Indexes of Four Music Datasets Used in AI Training

Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner uncovered four datasets of music used to train AI models and published them in searchable form on the Atlantic’s AI Watchdog site. Two datasets contain 12 million and 9 million tracks respectively, while the other two each hold more than 100,000 songs. The Verge reported that the datasets have been downloaded thousands of times.

Google and Stability both confirmed they used the datasets in research papers. Three of the datasets consist of lists of links to songs on YouTube or Spotify rather than the audio files themselves. The fourth is the Free Music Archive dataset.

Artists whose tracks appear in the datasets include Lady Gaga, Fred Again, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Wu-Tang Clan, Bruce Springsteen, and Hainbach. The Verge noted that some sources, such as the Free Music Archive, permit personal streaming but require licensing for commercial use.