An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken 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.
They asserted the audio 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 digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
