A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify 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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
