A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
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 opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
