An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data 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 rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
