A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive'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 known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
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 a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
