An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist 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 disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 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 great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted 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 the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
