A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally 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 knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
