An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity 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 album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
