An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research 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 regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
