A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models 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 Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation 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 administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
