A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
