An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, 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 company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said 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 breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary 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.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
