An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, 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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
