A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
