An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
