A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken 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 represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
