An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing 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 streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, 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 frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
