An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally 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 knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
