A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking 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 metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.