An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent 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, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing 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 streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated 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 alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
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 added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
