An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
