A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared 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 purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
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 respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
