A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared 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 beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used 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 the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
