An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 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 songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, 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.
