An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
