A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated 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 listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
