A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
