An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. 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 content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
