An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive'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 copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
