A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 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 the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology 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 committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
