A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
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 pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material 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 LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
