An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal 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 providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means 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 Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote 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 technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
