A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated 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 ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital 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 describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
