A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
