A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital 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 describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
