A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear 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.
