A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
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 providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners 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 beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
