An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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 asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
