A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported 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, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired 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 audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
