An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“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 said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
