A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, 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 illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
