A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development 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.
