An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio 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.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast 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 individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
