A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
