A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service 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 ‘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 sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern 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.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
