A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital 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 culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
