An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data 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 describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors 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 suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
