A digital rights 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 Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data 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 purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
