An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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 audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users 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 great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen 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 copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.