An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital 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 frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
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 train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become 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 government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
