A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
