An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent 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 known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize 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.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
