A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive 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 members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
