A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
