Advocacy Group Claims to Have Extracted Countless of Music Tracks from Spotify
A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
