An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify 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 knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, 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.
