A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated 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 recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation 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 government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
