An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
