An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said 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 shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service 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 information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
