An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
