An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired 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.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow 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.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
