A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
