An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
