An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
