An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
