An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, 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 [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music 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 data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
