A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
