An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group'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 providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting 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.
