A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
