An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
