A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify 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 represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
