A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course 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”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
