An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
