An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission 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 technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
