A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service 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 Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
