A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
