A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
