A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 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 Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
