A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
