A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology 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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
