A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged 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 third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
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 recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data 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 mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
