An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service 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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group 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 means of exchanging large data 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”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
