A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
