An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground 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 raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.