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 publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken 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 sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
