A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably 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 end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state 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 correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
