A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify 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’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
