An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent 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 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.
