A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as 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, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
