An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known 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 represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
