A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
