An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify 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 knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
