An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding 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 illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes 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.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law 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 ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
