An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify 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 scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
