An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared 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 recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
