A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 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 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”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen 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 pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
