An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed 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 committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
