A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
