A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion 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 supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, 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.
