A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music 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 audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
