An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission 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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 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 the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
