An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant 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 “little 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.
