An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
