A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing 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 streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
