Advocacy Collective Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant
A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They 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 method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
