A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think 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, 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course 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 “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
