A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, 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.
