An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
