An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify 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 information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing 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 makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology 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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
