A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said 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 songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
