Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, 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 start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
