An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data 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 were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course 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 knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
