An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course 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 “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little 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.
