An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
