An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
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 offering 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information 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 developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
