A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
