An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, 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 administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
