An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding 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.
