An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported 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 “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
