A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
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 known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
