A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
