A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data 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 describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
