An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, 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 illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote 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 ‘torrents’, 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 start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
