A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally 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 knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
