A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
