Activist Group Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant
A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared 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 start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding 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.
