An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives 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 proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
