Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Music Files from Spotify
A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
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 recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
