An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build 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 become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
