An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital 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 frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
