An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used 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 theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, 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.
