A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
