An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
