Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Audio Files from Spotify
A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
