An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated 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 listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
