An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
