An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify 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 catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed 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 recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
