Activist Group Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Music Files from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported 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 tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based 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 illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
