An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said 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 audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
