A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
