An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
