An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
