An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train 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 the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
