An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
