Activist Group Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from Spotify
An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means 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 describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
