A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission 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 recognized for offering links to pirated 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 listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, 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 beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
