An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
