A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal 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 pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
