A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service 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 copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted 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 method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly 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 theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
