A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little 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 March 2025.
