An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
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 right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
