An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ 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 means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository 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 the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
