A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means 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 describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
