A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used 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 principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, 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.
