An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data 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 frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
