A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data 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 frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
