A Discord server called AI Hub has been taken down, most likely because of copyright complaints, probably from the music industry.
The increasingly popular AI Hub was a place for sharing information and updates on AI projects, as well as completed AI models. According to Torrentfreak, that included "voice models of popular musicians including Bruno Mars, Frank Sinatra, Rihanna and Stevie Wonder".
While much of the content shared via the Discord server was legit, some of it infringed copyright.
Back in May, the Recording Industry Association Of America started raising concerns with Discord that users of the AI Hub were sharing and linking to unlicensed music files, even though doing so broke the rules set by operators of the server.
To that end, it requested that the server be removed or disabled. That didn't happen at the time, but Discord did remove some files and links that were identified as problematic by the RIAA. In June the record industry trade group then secured a subpoena in the US courts forcing Discord to identify AI Hub individuals who had alleged shared unlicensed music via the server.
It's not clear what further legal action, if any, was pursued. But earlier this week AI Hub was taken down. No official reason for the takedown has been given, though it seems likely it was due to repeated copyright complaints.
Digital platforms like Discord have an obligation, of course, under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to respond to copyright complaints, in order to benefit from the safe harbour that stops them from being held liable for any infringing content they inadvertently host.
Torrentfreak reports that "a new server, which snatched the .gg/aihub invite link, now welcomes former members". That is not formally connected with the old server, but nevertheless claims that: “AI Hub was banned because of copyright, apparently someone did the trick of editing posts and added several links with copyrighted content, which left Discord with no option but to DMCA the server".