An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service 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 heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed 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.
