A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators 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 let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told 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 pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
