An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
