An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
