A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
