An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing 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 streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly 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 “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
