An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
