An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries 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 were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said 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 listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
