An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified 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 believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website 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.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
