An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed 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 great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
