A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed 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,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
