An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data 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 describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
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
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent 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 science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
