Activist Collective Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant
A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method 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 mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
