A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
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 artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared 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,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
