An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course 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 Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.