An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, 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 committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
