A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
