A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated 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 method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
