An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based 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 circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify 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 streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
