An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed 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 data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
