An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ 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 means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service 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”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
