A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms 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 associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 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 fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
