An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
