A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material 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 artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing 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 listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion 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 backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear 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.
