An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners 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 start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
