An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious 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 investigation into unauthorized 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 known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said 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, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
