A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
