A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
