An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
