An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service 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.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify 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 heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
