An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated 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 streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
