An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think 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.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
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 develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
