Activist Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Files from Spotify
A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
