Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant
An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing 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 ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
