An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened 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 “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
