An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly 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 theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
