A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means 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 frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
