A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing 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 “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted 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 posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
