An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives 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 copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
