An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 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 leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
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 Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
