Activist Group Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Audio Tracks from Spotify
A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
