An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, 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 circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
