A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 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.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
