A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
