An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 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 the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
