An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, 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 LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little 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.
