An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe 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.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data 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 makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
