An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said 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 shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
