An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
