Activist Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Music Files from Spotify
A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ 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 sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, 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.
