A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
