A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing 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 listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
