A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary 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.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
