A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing 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 systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
