An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think 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 audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.