A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing 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 streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become 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 raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
