An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
