A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based 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.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote 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 ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
