An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio 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 music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners 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 great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, 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 right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
