A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives 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 let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
