Activist Group Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Music Files from Spotify
A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging 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”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
