A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, 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.
