A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
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 record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified 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 subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
