An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data 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 located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
