An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 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 nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
