An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, 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.
