An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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 audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
