A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers 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 Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, 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 pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
