A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
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 “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
