A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” 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 protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, 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 right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
