An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, 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.
