Activist Group Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital 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 mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers 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 ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
