An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
