A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
