An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
