An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify 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 Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
