An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 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.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
