An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology 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 committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
