Advocacy Collective Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Music Files from Spotify
An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge 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 artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
