Activist Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Music Files from Spotify
A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital 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 frames its purpose as “safeguarding 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 training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
