An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
