An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive'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 offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent 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 creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
