An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
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.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
