A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio 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 accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
