An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally 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 knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
