A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
