An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
