An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged 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 collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
