A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known 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 ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
