A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated 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 asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development 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 committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
