A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear 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.
