Activist Collective Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Files from Spotify
An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
