Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Audio Tracks from Spotify
A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.