A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used 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 “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
