An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist 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 disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
