Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify
An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said 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 shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course 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 “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives 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 let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
