An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ 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 ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
