An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing 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 its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear 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.
