A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method 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 “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site 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 posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
