Activist Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Audio Tracks from Spotify
An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified 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 believe the audio taken 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models 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 Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
