A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
