A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files 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 full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
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 sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated 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 members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
