An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
