An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata 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,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
