A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity 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. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“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 stated.
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 systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
