A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
