A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
