An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development 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 pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
