A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe 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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common 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 repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
