An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
