An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies 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, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
