An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course 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 “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material 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 LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
