A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
