An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly 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 personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
