Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Music Files from Spotify
An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
