An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
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 artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music 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 exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
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, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
