An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
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 opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
