A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added 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 Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
