An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
