An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ 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 data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder 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 told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
