An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, 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 company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
