An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital 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 “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly 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 allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
