An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes 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 artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
