An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
