A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, 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 start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
