An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed 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 repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
