The announcement had the effect of a bomb in the music industry. The Anna’s Archive collective claims to have sucked 86 million audio files and 256 million lines of metadata (titles, artists, albums) from Spotify. The whole thing would represent nearly 300 terabytes of data, intended to be shared via torrents.
Copyrights at the forefront
Spotify confirms an intrusion, but disputes its extent. The platform, which claims more than 100 million titles and more than 700 million users worldwide, ensures that its catalog has not been siphoned off in its entirety. In a press release, the company explains that it “ identified and disabled malicious accounts involved in illegal hoovering » and mentions “ Illicit tactics to circumvent DRM » to access certain audio files. At this point, the streaming platform says the tracks themselves have not been made public, with only the metadata having begun to circulate. The service also says it has strengthened its protections and is actively monitoring suspicious behavior. A strong reminder of his official line: “ Since day one, we have stood with the artistic community against piracy. »
For its part, Anna’s Archive assumes responsibility. The group, already known for referencing pirated books and articles, claims the creation of a musical “preservation archive”. “ Spotify obviously doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great place to start », writes the group in the name of safeguarding cultural heritage in the face of wars, natural disasters or budget cuts. Beyond hacking, the affair is also worrying because of its consequences for artificial intelligence. Many fear that the AI industry will dig into this treasure chest to train their models. The big players in the sector unfortunately have no qualms about using pirated data.
Anna’s Archive does not hide its references. The platform openly cites LibGen, a gigantic pirate library whose use by certain technology companies has already been raised in American courts. It was thus established that Meta had authorized the use of this type of database despite internal warnings about their illicit nature, a case far from closed.
In the world of startups, some are already observing the possible uses. Yoav Zimmerman, co-founder of Third Chair, summed up the situation on LinkedIn: “ With enough storage, anyone could, in theory, create their own personal, free version of Spotify. The only obstacles remain copyright and the fear of sanctions. » He also confirms that access to modern music « on a large scale » is a holy grail for companies developing AI tools.
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