An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
