An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
