An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service 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 pirated books, said 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 data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
