An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data 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 describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
