An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known 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 represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
