A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think 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, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology told 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 policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
