A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared 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 fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
