An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent 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 “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
