A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking 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 rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course 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”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
