An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
