A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references 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 systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators 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 utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
