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
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group known as 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 carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled 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, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
