An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think 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.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed 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 great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told 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 regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
