An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
