A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital 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 frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
