An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, 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 idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
