Activist Collective Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio 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 asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
