A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers 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].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify 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 culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
