An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe 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 claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common 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 a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
