A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
