An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting 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.
