An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data 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 album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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 Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course 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 culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
