An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired 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.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
