An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital 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 Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
