Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Music Files from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology 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 pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
