A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
