A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think 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.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
