An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote 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 listened to by its listeners and would be shared 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 great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references 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 systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
