A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies 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.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
