A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
