Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant
A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
