A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity called 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, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, 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.
