Activist Group Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant
A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
