A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission 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 copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data 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 “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added 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 creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
