Report claims Google, Microsoft, Meta, and others are using copyrighted songs to train AI at unprecedented scale
A major new investigation has revealed that some of the world’s largest technology companies are allegedly scraping copyrighted music without permission to train artificial intelligence models.
According to findings shared by the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP), firms including Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Anthropic have been using songs from artists such as The Beatles, Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Gorillaz, and Kanye West to power their AI tools, all without securing licenses.
“The Largest IP Theft in Human History”
Speaking to Billboard, ICMP Director John Phelan described the practice as “the largest IP theft in human history,” noting that “tens of millions of works are being infringed daily.”
The evidence collected reportedly spans more than two years and includes:
- Public registries
- Open-source repositories of training data
- Leaked internal materials
- Research from AI experts
ICMP claims that the proof is “comprehensive and clear,” and points to a scale of copyright infringement “larger than previously acknowledged.”
AI Tools Under Scrutiny
Among the tools named in the investigation are:
- Google’s Gemini
- Anthropic’s Claude
- Microsoft’s CoPilot
- Meta’s Llama 3
The report also suggests that X’s in-house chatbot Grok, owned by Elon Musk, is one of the “worst offenders”, copying and distributing lyrics of copyrighted music directly.
Music Industry Concerns Grow
The revelations add to mounting concerns across the music industry about how artificial intelligence is trained and deployed. Artists and rights holders have long feared that generative AI relies heavily on copyrighted works, but ICMP’s report claims the scale is far beyond what was assumed.
“This isn’t hyperbole,” Phelan added. “We’re talking about millions of songs — entire catalogs, being pulled into datasets without any permission from the people who created them.”
What’s Next?
With copyright law already lagging behind the rapid rise of AI, the investigation is likely to intensify pressure on regulators to enforce stricter protections for artists and publishers.
The full ICMP investigation was shared with Billboard and is now sparking industry-wide discussions about accountability in the AI era.