An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
