Advocacy Group Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify
A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, 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.
