Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Music Tracks from Spotify
An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material 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 tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving 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 developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
