An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said 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 digital 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 mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
