An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering 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 streamed 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 great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development 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 committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
