An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government 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 idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
