An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported 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 right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
