An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music 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 claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
