An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed 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 great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology 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 committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
