An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital 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 heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
