An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
