Music’s Dark Secret 🤫: Spotify Data Heist! 🎧

Spotify Investigates Massive Data Grab by Anna’s Archive
Spotify is reportedly investigating the extent to which Anna’s Archive scraped its data, following the archive’s announcement of a massive data acquisition.

Torrent of 300 TB – A Music Metadata Bonanza
Anna’s Archive triggered a stir this weekend by announcing it had “backed up” Spotify and distributed 300 terabytes of metadata and music files via bulk torrents. This encompassed over 99 percent of Spotify listens, resulting in the world’s largest publicly available music metadata database with 256 million tracks.

Illicit Scraping Uncovered
Spotify’s internal investigation revealed that a third party had scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent Digital Rights Management (DRM) to access audio files. This “at scale” scraping prompted Spotify to inform Android Authority and initiate legal action.

Preservation Mission or Piracy Play?
Anna’s Archive asserts that the scraping of Spotify data was a vital effort to “preserve humanity’s musical heritage,” shielding it “forever” from “destruction by natural disasters, wars, budget cuts, and other catastrophes.” However, the announcement sparked concern among some of the Archive’s users, many of whom primarily utilize the search engine to locate books, academic papers, and magazine articles.

AI Interest Fuels Controversy
Data, including “unreleased collections,” is openly available for donation – with the potential to access it through contributions of “tens of thousands.” The archive’s website encourages interested AI researchers to contact them to discuss potential collaborations, noting that “AI may not be their original/primary motivation, but they are evidently on board with facilitating AI labs piracy-maxxing.”

A Targeted Gambit?
Anna’s Archive, however, is actively supporting AI developers, promoting the sale of “high-speed access” to “enterprise-level” LLMs. A prominent commenter stated, “This is insane. Definitely wondering if this was in response to a desire from AI researchers/companies who wanted this stuff.”